This September, as the U.K. outlawed Hamas, the Hamas publication Filisteen Almuslima (Muslim Palestine) continued to be published in and distributed from London to the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S. In fact, the cover of the September issue carries the horrifying picture of the bloody casualties and the dissevered No. 2 bus in Jerusalem, as well as the glorified image of the homicide bomber who murdered 23 innocent civilians, many of them babies, and wounded 136. Inside, the magazine praises and justifies the terrorist attack against Israelis and glorifies the terrorist, Raid Misk, as a heroic role model for potential homicide bombers against oppressors of Islam everywhere. It quotes the Koranic verse, which according to Hamas, givesIslamic religious justification for homicide bombings:
Among the believers, there are men who have been true to their covenant with Allah: some of them [have already fulfilled their vows and] found their death [in battle]; and some still wait [their turn]. However, they have not in any way broken [their vows]. [Surah 33 (al-Ahzab), verse 23]
And Filisteen Almuslima is not the only Islamist magazine published in and distributed from England–inciting hate, spreading anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Semitic messages, with pro-jihad, pro-terrorist propaganda and calls for homicide bombings. Risalat al-Ikhwan (Message of the Brotherhood) is also a London publication with Muslim subscribers worldwide. This magazine serves as center stage for spreading radical Islamist ideology in the best tradition of the Muslim Brotherhood. This Egyptian terrorist organization was outlawed by Gamal Abd al-Nasser in the 1950s, and despite its influence on Hamas and other internationally outlawed terrorist organizations, it is still out in the open in Western countries.
On August 20, 2003, Risalat al-Ikhwan carried a letter by the Muslim Brotherhood’s head, Muhammad Mamoun al-Hudeibi, stating:
the Americans, armed with weapons of mass destruction, intend to destroy and devastate Iraq as well as… eliminate and force out millions of Iraqis, in order to put their hands on the Iraqi oil and redefine the map of the region in a way which will reflect its division and rift.
Al-Hudeibi ends his letter by calling on all Arab Muslims to “raise the banner of jihad.”
In another statement yet, al-Hudeibi wrote:
…we need to remember that this nefarious attack [on Iraq] by the forces of evil and heresy against our nation is not a matter of recent years alone… [But] victory has always belonged to truth and to those fighting for it, those who have demonstrated patience and strength of will, fought a holy war…Oh, youth of Islam, oh, ye clerics, oh, my brothers… there can be no victory without sacrifice, no domination without jihad.
The U.K. has become a global hub for Islamist propaganda. These and similar publications and their affiliated websites also raise funds for jihad. Yet, bringing these to the attention of the British authorities has resulted, thus far, in the statement: “We’re looking into it.” They had better be; waiting for another 9/11 (or Bali, or…) is no strategy for fighting terrorism.
–Rachel Ehrenfeld is the author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed–and How to Stop It and director of the Manhattan-based American Center for Democracy.