Exclusive: How Britain Helps Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood
Family Security Matters Part Two (of Two)
Part One can be found here.
The Labour Government's Friends
In Britain, the Muslim Brotherhood has made its presence felt through its front groups and individuals who play double roles in society. The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) is widely perceived as a front-group of the Muslim Brotherhood. It was co-founded in 1997 by Kemal el-Helbawy the European spokesman of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
In 2004, at the invitation of the MAB, the Muslim Brotherhood's "spiritual leader", Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, arrived in London. In 2001 Qaradawi had issued a fatwa that condoned the murder of Israeli civilians, a fatwa that was repeated on Hamas' website to justify their attacks against Israeli civilians.
During his 2004 visit, Qaradawi was publicly welcomed by extreme Left-winger Ken Livingstone, who was then Mayor of London. Later, on September 13, 2005, Livingstone was asked to give evidence to the government's Select Committee on Home Affairs. Livingstone and others were giving evidence in the aftermath of the London bombings that had happened two months earlier, on July 7th, in which 52 innocent people died.
Here, Livingstone said: "I find myself in complete agreement with the internal Foreign Office document that was prepared as a brief for the Home Office on the subject of Dr. Qaradawi, which completely corroborates the stand I have taken on every single point."
The document Livingstone alluded to can be found here. It had been leaked to the Observer newspaper and had been published on September 4, 2005. The document was written by Mockbul Ali, an employee of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who had previously praised the killing of Israeli civilians.
Mockbul Ali, who will be discussed later, had suggested that Qaradawi should not be prevented from making future visits to London. Qaradawi is banned from entering the United States - with good reason. In August 2004, shortly after his visit to London, Qaradawi said: "The abduction and killing of Americans in Iraq is a [religious] obligation so as to cause them to leave Iraq immediately."
The Foreign Office memo stated: "He (Qaradawi) is the leading mainstream and influential Islamic authority in the Middle East and increasingly in Europe, with an extremely large popular following and regular shows on Al Jazeera.... Excluding Qaradawi would give grist to AQ (Al Qaeda) propaganda of a western vendetta against Muslims and would undermine Qaradawi's counter terrorism messages. Qaradawi would be the first port of call when encouraging statements against terrorism and the killing of Muslim civilians in Iraq, as requested recently by Iraq Policy Unit. He has repeatedly and authoritatively condemned terrorist attacks - after 9/11, Ball, Madrid, Beslan, the Bigley kidnapping and recently after the bombings in Qatar, as well as on other occasions."
Despite Qaradawi's rabid anti-Semitism and his pro-Islamist views, the Foreign Office and the Labour Mayor of London presented him as some kind of savior figure. Ken Livingstone told the Select Committee on Home Affairs that "The truth is Sheik Qaradawi, if I can think of a parallel that Christians would understand, is I think very similar to the position of Pope John XXIII, absolutely saying Islam must engage with the world, we must have democracy in the Middle East, we must actually accept the changing role of women. He is, of all the Muslim thinkers in the world today, the most powerful, progressive force for change and engaging Islam with Western values. If we cannot talk to Qaradawi, you will not really be talking to anybody from the Muslim community."
Another person giving evidence to the same Select Committee on Home Affairs was Iqbal Sacranie. This individual was then the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, or MCB. The MCB, like the MAB, had also been co-founded in 1997 by Muslim Brotherhood senior member Kemal el-Helbawy.
Sacranie claims to be a moderate, but he famously said of Salman Rushdie at the time of his 1989 death-fatwa that "Death, perhaps is too good for him." More worryingly, Sacranie had attended a memorial service at the Regents Park Mosque to celebrate the life of Sheikh Yassin, the founder of terrorist group Hamas. Little of Sacranie's evidence was practical in formulating a strategy against future terrorist attacks. He began by claiming the 7/7 bombings had nothing to do with Islam, and went on to suggest that a "true believer" could not have carried out any bombings.
Sacranie was knighted in June 2005, a month before the London bombings. The MCB, the umbrella group that he headed, had considerable influence within the Labour government, even though several of its 400 representative bodies - such as the 41 branches of Ahl-e-Hadith - supported, and continue to support, extremism. On its website in 2005, the Ahl-e-Hadith urged its followers to not be like Jews or Christians whose "ways are based on sick or deviant views."
Another group under the MCB "umbrella" is the UK Islamic Mission (UKIM) which has more than 40 branches across Britain. Founded in 1962, UKIM acts as a UK mouthpiece for the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami. In Pakistian in May 2007, this group introduced a draft bill into the National Assembly which would have made apostasy from Islam punishable with death. The foudner of the Jamaat-e-Islami party is Syed Ala Maududi, and on UKIM's website, writings by Maududi can be downloaded. Maududi is widely seen as being influential upon the Muslim Brotherhood.
Another group under the MCB umbrella is "The Islamic Foundation" of Markfield near Leicester, also known as the Markfield Foundation. This body was founded by Kurshid Ahmad in 1973, who was then a leading member of the Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami party. Now, Kurshid Ahmad is Vice-President of the Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami party, supporting bills introduced by the party such as the draft Apostasy Act and Pakistan's blasphemy laws which make criticism of Mohammed punishable by death. In Part One I mentioned that Azzam Tamimi, a leading Hamas-supporter and member of the Muslim Association of Britain, had been a lecturer at the Islamic Foundation.
Several of the texts by Maududi which appear on UKIM's website are translated by Kurshid Ahmad, such as Jihad fi Sabilillah. This includes the statements: "non-Muslims and Muslims alike to fail to understand the real nature of Jihad fi Sabilillah ('Holy War for the Cause of Allah')... Those who affirm their faith in this ideology become members of the party of Islam and enjoy equal status and equal rights, without distinctions of class, race, ethnicity or nationality. In this manner, an International Revolutionary Party is born, to which the Qur’an gives the title of Hizb- Allah* (literally, “The Party of Allah”), otherwise known as the Ummah (Nation) of Islam. As soon as this party is formed, it launches the struggle to attain the purpose for which it exists. The rationale for its existence is that it should endeavor to destroy the hegemony of an un- Islamic system, and establish in its place the rule of that social and cultural order which regulates life with balanced and humane laws, referred to by the Qur'an by the comprehensive term 'the Word of Allah'."
The MCB acted until late 2006 as the Labour government's main adviser on Muslim affairs, even though it represents groups that are vehemently opposed to Western notions of democracy and freedom of speech.
The Foreign Office and Policies of Islamist "Engagement"
The MAB - which still acts as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood - and the MCB have their own agenda - to promote Islam in Britain. It is worrying that either of these groups have been seen to represent "moderate" Islam and especially so that the MCB has acted as adviser to the Labour government. It is far more alarming to know that within the secretive Foreign and Commonwealth Office, radical Islam has been supported and encouraged.
Foreign Office employee Mockbul Ali wrote his memorandum supporting the granting of a visa to Yusuf al-Qaradaw on July 14, 2005, exactly seven days after four Islamist fanatics had blown up themselves and 52 civilians on London's transport system. The memo had landed in the hands of journalist Martin Bright, who wrote for both the Observer and the Guardian newspapers.
Bright soon received several more documents, almost all of which showed that the British government, through bodies such as intelligence agency MI6 (SIS) and the Foreign Office, was supporting a policy of appeasement to, and collaboration with, extreme Islamists, particularly those of the Muslim Brotherhood.
One of these documents was written by William Ehrman, the leading intelligence official at the Foreign Office, and was addressed to Sir David Omand, Security & Intelligence Co-ordinator and Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office. It suggested a policy of creating messages aimed at "radicalised constituencies who are potential recruits to terrorism". These individuals, Ehrman suggested, "might, however, listen to religious arguments about the nature of jihad, that, while anti-Western, eschew terrorism." Ehrman stated: "I presume there are opportunities for engaging in the debates on Islamist websites, unattributably."
This leaked document clearly spelled out a plan from the Foreign Office to promote anti-Western views to disaffected Muslims, in the hope that these could be dissuaded from terrorism. It was condemned by journalists Melanie Phillips and Nick Cohen, but documents continued to be leaked that showed the Foreign Office had no intention of abandoning its flirtations with radical Islam.
At the time, the source of these leaked documents was not named. Soon, there were enough of these for Martin Bright to have the bulk of them published by Right-wing think tank The Policy Exchange. The mole who had supplied Bright other journalists with photocopies of documents was later exposed as Derek Pasquill (pictured), who was employed at the Foreign Office. At the end of January 2006, Derek Pasquill was arrested, and the supply of leaked documents from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office dried up.
Pasquill was charged In October 2007 with breaking the terms of Britain's Official Secrets Act. Strangely, in January 2008, Pasquill's trial at the Old Bailey was abruptly abandoned. The government's prosecutor had admitted that internal documents by senior officials at the Foreign Office admitted that Pasquill's leaks had not been harmful to British interests and had even led to a constructive debate. It seems that certain Labour politicians additionally did not want to be called to court to give evidence. After the court case was abandoned, Ppasquill said: "I am relieved I have now been completely vindicated in my actions exposing dangerous government policy and changing its priorities."
The stories that Pasquill leaked over a period of six months from 2005 - 2006 were shocking. Among Martin Bright's anthology of leaked Foreign Office documents is one (page 37) from Angus McKee of the Foreign Office's Middle East and North Africa department. McKee wrote: "Given that Islamist groups are often less corrupt than the generality of the societies in which they operate, consideration might be given to channelling aid resources through them, so long as sufficient transparency is achievable."
In another document, a letter from June 23, 2005 from Sir Derek Plumbly, Britain's ambassador to Egypt, addressed to John Sawyer, political director of the Foreign Office, was written: "We will continue to look for opportunities to talk to Islamists here (in Egypt)." Another paper, co-written by Basil Eastwood, a former British ambassador to Syria, and Richard Murphy, a former official in the Reagan administration, the claim is made: "For a year now we have been engaged with a dialogue with a small group of people familiar with some of the different national branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, with Hamas and Hizbolllah. They do not formally represent these movements, but we believe that they do speak with authority."
A confidential document authored by Julie McGregor of the Foreign Office's Arab-Israel North Africa Group, dated January 17, 2006, recommended more frequent dialogue with members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. McGregor stated: "Engaging with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood will help increase our understanding of political Islam generally, as well as in the specific Egyptian context. Incremental enhancement of contacts may help in discouraging radicalization."
After Pasquill was arrested and effectively silenced, other journalists, and even politicians, were alerted to the strange policies that were endorsed by the Foreign Office, and further disclosures were made.
It was revealed in July 2006 that the British government had wasted tax-payers' money on sending the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, on an expenses-paid trip to Istanbul in Turkey. Qaradawi and his wife had been flown from their home in Qatar to a conference on Islam, and had been put up at a five star hotel. The Foreign Office had funded the conference that Qaradawi attended, which was held at the Ceylan InterContinental Hotel in Istanbul. If Pasquill had not leaked information, this story would never have been known.
In December 2006 it was disclosed that the Foreign Office had sent groups of Muslims overseas to meet other Muslims. This information was revealed by a Member of Parliament, and not by Pasquill. The groups went to 18 nations, including Morocco, Egypt, Bahrain, Singapore, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, Algeria, Indonesia, Qatar and Sudan. Other tours went to Bosnia, Spain, Germany, France, India and Holland. One group met with Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader, in Qatar. In Sudan, a group of British Muslims met Hassan al-Turabi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose policies of forcing Sharia law upon unwilling non-Muslims led to a civil war in which 2 million people died. Between 1991 and 1996 Turabi gave sanctuary to terrorists Osama bin Laden and also Carlos the Jackal.
A Foreign Office official explained the ethos of the missions: "The idea is to promote British Muslims overseas, to try to get rid of the myth that British Muslims are oppressed, and to give Muslims in the UK the experience of how Muslims in other parts of the world live."
Such pointless excursions continued until this year. In May 2008, a group of British Muslims went to Afghanistan. In June 2008, six British Muslims were paid to visit Pakistan, "to share their experiences of life in the UK and engage in constructive dialogue to increase mutual understanding."
Pasquill's leaks had caused a spotlight to be shone on "Mockbul Ali", the author of the memorandum that suggested Qaradawi should enter Britain. One of the documents in Martin Bright's "collection" indicate that against advice from other Foreign Office members, Mockbul Ali was advocating that Bangladelshi politician Delwar Hossain Sayeedi should be allowed to enter Britain. The discussion took place in September 2005. Ali suggested that Sayeedi should come to Britain because he had "a very big following in the mainstream Bangladeshi community."
Sayeedi, a policy-maker within the Bangladeshi branch of the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, has expressed virulent contempt towards Hindus and members of the Ahmadiyyah sect of Islam. On a previous visit to Britain, Sayeedis followers physically attacked five elders within the British Bangladeshi community. Sayeedi eventually was allowed into Britain in July 2006. Sayeedi visited the East London Mosque, whose chairman, Muhammad Abdul Bari, had recently replaced Iiqbal Sacranie as head of the Muslim Council of Britain. Bari, like Sayeedi, was born in Bangladeshi.
The British government appears to have no qualms in allowing hate-spewing Islamists into the country, although in June 2008 it refused permission to Martha Stewart to enter Britain. Ms. Stewart is politically harmless and has served her time in jail - but individuals like Sayeedi, who advocate that Americans in Iraq should convert to Islam or die, are given free passage to enter the UK, where they are allowed to incite.
Mockbul Ali comes from a Bangladeshi family. In 2005, when he wrote a memorandum advising that Qaradawi should return to Britain, he was only 25. He was then heading a department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office called the Engaging With the Islamic World Group (EIWG). In 2007, the EIWG group's list of "priority" countries included Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Kenya, Somalia Syria, Indonesia, Philippines, Palestine and Nigeria. Originally, Bangladesh was top of the list, but in late 2006 the corruption of Islamists within its last government caused its democracy to be suspended.
Mockbul Ali himself has a past that should have rightfully excluded him from a senior post within the Foreign Office. Only a Leftist government like Labour could put a fox in charge of a hen house. While a student at the London School of Oriental and African Studies, he belonged to the Union of Muslim Students, (UMS) a group that reprinted articles by Qaradawi.
Ali edited the UMS newspaper, which on one occasion praised the "heroic operation" of a Palestinian woman suicide bomber. In 2002 in Jerusalem, this "bride in the dress of martyrdom" had murdered two Israeli civilians in a supermarket. Mockbul Ali had caused Sharif Hasan al-Banna, president of UMS, to be sent to Islamic conferences in Indonesia and Nigeria, trips paid for by the UK taxpayer.
When on May 8, 2006 Conservative member of parliament Michael Gove tried to ask questions in parliament about how Mockbul Ali had been given such an influential position within the Foreign Office, he was fobbed off. Kim Howells, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs told him: "It is not Foreign and Commonwealth Office policy to comment publicly on the employment contracts for individual members of staff, nor on advice sought or not sought before offering a member of staff employment. Staff are recruited according to strict guidelines under free and fair, open competitions."
Derek Pasquill claimed that: "I also became increasingly unhappy about the activities of Mockbul Ali, the FCO's Islamic issues adviser. He had been seconded to Labour to work on the 2005 election campaign - something that raised eyebrows in the department. His relationship with the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, was thought to be close. Mockbul Ali had a habit of dismissing respected western academics as "orientalists" and had little time for civil servants. More seriously, he also described Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its south Asian offshoot Jamaat-e-Islami as mainstream. This is, at the very least, a contentious assertion, as was his support for the radical Egyptian scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi and the Bangladeshi Islamist Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, both of whom had condoned violence."
The Foreign Office continues to support engagement with Islamists. The 81-year-old terror-supporting cleric, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, wanted to come back to Britain, it was announced in January 2008 that "senior civil servants in the Home Office and Foreign Office have recommended that ministers approve an application by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is banned from entering the United States, to come to London for medical treatment."
On January 29, 2008 in parliament, the unelected prime minister, Gordon Brown, faced a barrage of verbal sniper fire from Conservative leader David Cameron over the Qaradawi visa. Brown appeared weak and indecisive, but eventually the government refused to give the Muslim Brotherhood cleric a visa. Many of those behind the 2008 Islam Expo - themselves affiliates or supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood - were outraged at the government decision.
Islam Expo
In Part One I described some aspects of "Islam Expo" the annual exhibition of Islam which was held in July at the Olympia exhibition center. Its main organizer is Mohammed Sawalha, a former president of the Muslim Association of Britain, and a former fund-raiser for the terrorist group Hamas who went under the code-name "Abu Abada."
Hamas and MAB both have their origins in the Muslim Brotherhood. British politicians, and civil servants within the Foreign Office, have plainly bought into the lie promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood, that it is a "peaceful" organization. If it was a genuinely peaceful organization, the Muslim Brotherhood would not have as its slogan: "Allah is our goal; the Messenger is our model; the Quran is our constitution; jihad is our means; and martyrdom in the way of Allah is our aspiration."
Jihad, despite some people's dubious semantics, means what it says - Holy War. In 1948 the MB in Egypt supported terrorist attacks, and in the 1950s it supported assassinations. In 2007 the supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Mahdi 'Akef,' called for terrorist attacks in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to MEMRI, in May 2008, Mahdi Akef gave an interview in which some of his more extreme ideas were expressed. He said that Osama bin Laden was a "supreme Jihad fighter". He also said that no Copt (Egyptian Christian) could become leader of Egypt, and reiterated his belief that the Muslim Brotherhood would - if allowed - send fighters to Iraq and Palestine.
The Islam Expo this year, more than in previous years, tried to present itself as the true face of British Islam. It invited several non-Muslim speakers to the event. Some of these were supporters of radical Islam, such as Ken Livingstone. The Left-wing think-tank called Demos, which has previously influenced Labour policy, held seminars at the event. The leader of Demos, Catherine Fieschi, resigned on the last day of the Islam Expo event. She wrote enigmatically: "I won't go into a detailed exposé of why Demos refused to pull out of IslamExpo; suffice to say that the events we held were challenging and pandered to no one."
Other individuals had their own reasons to pull out of the event. Martin Bright and Charles Murray - an ardent opponent of Islamism - both pulled out when news came that Mohammed Sawalha had threatened to sue a British weblog. Harry's Place is firmly on the Left, but unlike most British Left-wing groups, it is a sharp observer and critic of Islamism. Martin Bright started a Facebook group entitled "IslamExpo is a Hamas Front."
The cause of Sawalha's ire against Harry's Place was an article in the blog which asserted that Sawalha had mentioned in a speech to Al Jazeera that he expressed resentment at the "evil Jew/Jewish evil" in Britain. The words were taken from Al Jazeera's Arabic-language website, and were later replaced with the words "Jewish lobby," stated the weblog.
David T., author of the offending piece, wrote: "Put it this way. There's clear evidence what the Al Jazeera article originally said. It would be wholly unsurprising that a man who is apparently a Hamas activist would give an interview in Arabic in which he railed against ‘Jewish evil.’ That is, after all, one of Hamas’ favorite themes." The Right-wing journal The Spectator urged support for Harry's Place.
The threats to sue the weblog were not the reason motivating Labour politicians, especially Muslim politicians, from attending the event. As explained in the Times newspaper, the main factor preventing Labour politicians from attending the event was pressure from Communities Secretary Hazel Blears.
Stephen Timms, Minister of State for Employment, was to have given a speech at the opening of the Islam Expo event. He stepped down, along with Labour member of the House of Lords Lord Ahmed (who said he had a bad back), and Muslim member of parliament Shahid Malik, who is international development minister.
The reason why the Labour politicians were urged to resign from the event was connected with the support from the Islam Expo organizers for the group Hamas. Currently, the government has embarked on a massive program of spending in Britain, to defuse radicalism in Muslim communities.
About £80 million will be spent on funding "moderate" Muslim groups, even though the Labour government has previously been unable to distinguish between moderate and Islamist groups. Communities minister Hazel Blears recently caused alarm when she claimed that it was "common sense" to pay less importance to Christianity than to Islam. She said on BBC radio that Britain has "got an issue where we have to build resilience of young Muslim men and women to withstand an extremist message."
As a result, funds are being spent on communities with Muslim populations, in an attempt to bribe Muslims into being less radical. In High Wycombe, one senior Muslim has suggested that these government funds are being aimed at five-year-olds.
Obviously, for an unpopular government that is spending tax-payers' money on Muslim groups in the hope that they do not become radical, it would appear shocking if the same government was seen to support an event led by supporters of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
So for the moment, the government pretends that it does not do deals with extremists. But as I have shown, elements within the government have certainly supported extremists in the past, and probably continue to support them. There is no evidence to suggest that this government and its civil servants will cease from supporting extremists in the future. Without a mole like Derek Pasquill to report on its clandestine operations, there is no accounting for what this government might do.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan is a British based writer and artist who has written for Western Resistance since its inception. He also writes for Spero News. He has previously contributed to various publications, including the Guardian and New Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society. Feedback: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..