On Wednesday evening GBTV unveiled the highly anticipated special, “Rumors of War III, Target U.S.” The documentary examined how radical Islamist groups including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, are gaining a foothold in America, be it via the growing threat of Mexican drug cartels or the infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood mouthpieces in the U.S. government. Given that the Obama administration has essentially declared the war on terror over, it seems some have chosen to dismiss the power, reach and actual motivations of these militant groups. In order to understand the threat, however, one must understand who these Islamists really are — their roots, ideology and ultimate stated goals.
(Related: Want to Know Just how Close the Muslim Brotherhood Is to the Obama Admin?)
The Muslim Brotherhood: “Jihad is our way”
Founded in 1928 by Egyptian schoolteacher and staunch Adolf Hitler admirer, Hasan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood is no new-comer to the game of radical Islam. In fact, the Sunni group is considered the oldest and most powerful Islamist organization in the world to date. It is the ideological predecessor of Hamas, Hezbollah and even al Qaeda. Active in at least 70 countries around the world (some estimates claim 100), the Brotherhood’s long-stated purpose is to provide resistance to the secularization and westernization of Islamic nations by promoting the tenets of the Quran and its “legal” framework, Shariah law. Further, its ultimate goal was to be the destruction of non-Islamic states through jihad — or holy war — resulting in the establishment of an Islamic caliphate — one that would eclipse the whole of the western world and beyond.
While sympathizers decry reference to the Brotherhood’s roots as merely overblown scare-tactics leveled by right-wing ”extremists,” their claim that the group is largely secular flies in the face of the entity’s very name: Muslim Brotherhood; and its motto: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Quran is our law. Jihad [struggle] is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
According to analysis conducted by Discover the Networks and Jewish Virtual Library, in the 1930s, the Brotherhood was mainly an underground, paramilitary organization that amassed weapons and operated “clandestine camps that provided instruction in military and terrorist tactics.” By the mid-1940s the Brotherhood in Egypt boasted roughly 1,500 branches and by 1948 a membership that is estimated to have exceeded 2 million. During that time period, the late, disgraced PLO leader Yasser Arafat fought alongside his Muslim Brethren.
Hassan al-Banna
Of the Brotherhood’s dual identity, scholar Martin Kramer stated:
“On one level, they operated openly, as a membership organization of social and political awakening. Banna preached moral revival, and the Muslim Brethren engaged in good works. On another level, however, the Muslim Brethren created a ‘secret apparatus’ that acquired weapons and trained adepts in their use. Some of its guns were deployed against the Zionists in Palestine in 1948, but the Muslim Brethren also resorted to violence in Egypt. They began to enforce their own moral teachings by intimidation, and they initiated attacks against Egypt’s Jews.”
In keeping with its budding penchant for violent opposition, the Brotherhood assassinated then-Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi Nuqrashi in 1948, resulting in the group’s exile from Egypt and inevitably, the assassination of its own founder, al-Banna. Those who did not flee were imprisoned by the thousands, but that did not stop the militant Islamist Brotherhood. The remaining members simply disbursed to satellite locations in Transjordan, Palestine and Syria, many of whom participated in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948.
Muslim Brotherhood Leader With Nazis
One of the Brotherhood’s more radical factions was led by writer and ideologue Sayyid Qutb. who Discover the Networks reports advocated armed conflict against non-Islamist states in the Middle East and ultimately, Western infidel nations. DTN describes Qutb this way:
Qutb — whose wordview distinguished sharply between “the Party of Allah and the Party of Satan,” — declared that Egyptian society under the secular Nasser was contrary to authentic Islam. Asserting that the Prophet Mohammad himself would have rejected such a government, Qutb claimed that Muslims had both a right and an obligation to resist it. Qutb’s writings — which challenged the views of mainstream Sunni theologians, who extolled the Islamic tradition of deference to the state and ruler — are now cited by many scholars as some of the first formulations of political Islam.
DTN continues by describing that the lynchpin of Qutb’s “fundamentalist critique” of Egyptian society was his “abiding contempt for the Western, especially the United States, which he regarded as spiritually vacant, decadent, idolatrous and fundamentally hostile to Islamic piety.”
While Qutbs influence was rising, however, the Muslim Brotherhood’s reign of terror almost came to an end in 1954 after one of its members, Abdul Munim Abdul Rauf, attempted to assassinate then-President Nasser. Ironically, the permission the Brotherhood had received to re-enter the country was hence revoked and Nasser put what can only be described as a fatwa on the militant group, burning down its headquarters and arresting approximately 15,000 members — some of whom were executed– notably, Qutb.
In an article for the Middle East Forum scholar Raymond Ibrahim considered what provoked such a violent reaction in Nasser (other than his assassination attempt). He wrote:
“Nasser, a pious Muslim, was most likely intimately, if not instinctively, aware of what the Brotherhood was—and still is: he was aware that it is impossible for Muslim organizations committed to theocratic rule to negotiate or share power, much less be trustworthy allies. In short, Nasser was aware that, once the opportunity presented itself, the Brotherhood would do everything in its power to take over: unlike secular parties concerned with the temporal, it has a divine mandate — a totalitarian vision — to subdue society to Sharia.
Symbol for the Muslim Brotherhood.
That is not where the madness ends. As the decades progressed, the Brotherhood was involved in a series of other “jihads” culminating in the jointly-planned assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat following the success of his Sinai Treaty with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
Later, in 2004, one of the Brotherhood’s longtime clerics and Islamic scholars, SheikhYousef Al-Qaradhawi, issued a fatwa — or religious mandate — ordering Muslims abduct and kill U.S. citizens in Iraq.
From Israel’s 1948 War of Independence to the Arab Spring; from paying a role in the assassination of
Muslim Brotherhood Egypt Elections
the one Arab leader the world thought would usher in an era of peace and stability in the region, to having a hand in the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Muslim Brotherhood has been there in the thick of it all — and in no small way.
As we approach the present-day, after fueling the violent Egyptian Spring that successfully toppled Hosni Mubarak’s Western and Israeli-friendly regime, the organization has attempted to show its “softer side” by taking a place at the country’s political table. The Brotherhood has secured sweeping wins in Egypt’s parliamentary elections and is seeking to claim the presidency itself with candidate, Khairat el-Shater. While he was among a group of candidates recently disqualified from the race, his campaign is appealing for his reinstatement.
Under the presidency, and after decades struggling for the establishment of a theocracy, the Brotherhood promises an Egyptian “renaissance.”
Hamas: “In as much as Jews love life—we love death and martyrdom.”
Founded in 1987, the Muslim Brotherhood progeny is an Islamic terrorist organization whose base of operations is primarily concentrated in the Gaza Strip and some areas of Judea and Samaria (otherwise known as the West Bank). An Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement,” Sunni-comprised Hamas describes itself as “one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood” and is also a proxy of Iran, which frequently supplies the group arms as well as funds its various initiatives. More than this, Hamas is also a social, religious and now, after “democratic elections,“ an ”official” political movement in the region. The organization comprises a legislative and social branch, along with its military outfit, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
Hamas members burn a mock helicopter.
Hamas’ stated purpose, its sole reason for existence, is to liberate Palestine from its “evil” Zionist occupiers. It is not enough for Hamas that the Palestinians establish their own state alongside Israel, as the terrorist group deems Israel’s very existence an abomination and one that, ultimately, needs to be wiped from the face of the earth. To this end, it has been the primary aggressor against the Jewish State, routinely orchestrating suicide-bombings that target military and civilians alike. It also frequently launches rockets into Israel and has claimed responsibility for hundreds of attacks in the last two decades, particularly after amping up its onslaught in the wake of the Oslo Accords.
Hamas’ success at wreaking havoc in the region could not be done alone. In addition to receiving backing from Iran, the Islamist group also receives arms from its Lebanese brothers, Hezbollah, and more disturbing, al Qaeda. In a detailed analysis for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Dr. Harold Brackman explained that Hamas “has held secret summits with Al Qaeda operatives in locales as distant as India, and even sent a select few members to train in bin Laden’s Afghan camps.”
He added that even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas claimed in 2007 that: “It is Hamas that is shielding Al Qaeda, and through its bloody conduct, Hamas has become very close to Al Qaeda [in Gaza].”
The Hamas slogan rings eerily familiar to that of its forebear, the Muslim Brotherhood, stating: ”Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Quran its Constitution, Jihad its path, and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief.”
Per the terrorist organization’s charter, Hamas asserts that jihad is a “duty binding on every Muslim man and woman” and unequivocally rejects negotiated settlements as a means to coexist with Israel. ”There is no other solution for the Palestinian problem other than jihad. All the initiatives and international conferences are a waste of time and a futile game.”
Discover the Network reviewed the charter and published several of its other tenets. Some include:
- mandates that jihad be directed explicitly against the reviled Jews: “The Nazism of the Jews does not skip women and children, it scares everyone. They make war against people’s livelihood, plunder their moneys and threaten their honor.”
- calls for the fulfillment of the Qur’anic scripture which reads: “The prophet [Mohammad] said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!”
Islamists Invoke Nazi Salute
To put Hamas’ destructive power in perspective, take into account that 680 missiles, rockets and mortars were fired into southern Israel, mostly by Hamas, in 2011 alone. Since its inception, Hamas has also been the primary perpetrator of suicide bombings.
Aside from operating within a vast network of militants spread across the Islamic world, Hamas ensures future success primarily via the dissemination of a steady stream of propaganda and through the indoctrination of Palestinian youth in schools. It has been widely reported the terrorist group has infiltrated the Palestinian education system, which has modelled its textbooks after Mein Kampf and other anti-Semitic works. Watchdog groups like Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI frequently capture footage of Palestinian children chanting such slogans as “death to Israel” and “death to America.”
For good measure, review the following Hamas battle cries as listed in the Simon Wiesenthal report:
“The language of bullets and bombs is the only language that the Jews understand.”
“We tell them [the Israelis]: in as much as you love life—the Muslims love death and martyrdom.”
“Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas!”
“You [America] will face the mirror of your history for a long time to
come. . . . [With the 9/11 attacks] Allah has answered our prayers.”
What is perhaps most difficult for those who love life — like Americans and Israelis — to comprehend is that it is futile to attempt to appeal to groups such as Hamas, because they are impervious to reason and incapable of properly processing basic human emotion (such as love of child). This is perhaps best illustrated in its collective and continued willingness to sacrifice its children by sending them off to their deaths, strapped with explosives in the “name of Allah.” An entity that comprises people who do not value their own lives, especially those of their children, is not one that can be negotiated with. The West and Israel has no leverage over Hamas, because Hamas has nothing it values enough to fear losing.
Hezbollah: “The party of god”
Not far from Hamas’ base of operations, is the Lebanon-based Hezbollah. Led by Hassan Nasrallah,
Hezbollah Supporters Carry Katyusha Models Amid Portrait of Hassan Nasrallah and Imam Moussa Sadr
the Shia terrorist organization’s stated goal is the establishment of an Islamic state encompassing both Lebanon and Israel.
With the help of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and now Syria alongside, Hezbollah was born during Israel’s first war with Lebanon in 1982 and has been a violent opponent of the Jewish State ever since. But Hezbollah’s animus is not reserved solely for Israel. The Islamic group has also been implicated in dozens of major terrorist attacks against the U.S. and other Western targets, including the 1983 suicide truck bombings of the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 service men and women. It was followed by an assault on the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut in 1984. Of the brutal attack, The Jewish Virtual Library notes:
The bombing at the Marine barracks in Beirut was the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima (2,500 in one day) of World War II and the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States military since the 243 killed on 31st January 1968 — the first day of the Tet offensive in the Vietnam war. The attack remains the deadliest single attack on Americans overseas since World War II.
The militant Islamist organization is also said to have been responsible for the kidnap, torture and murder of U.S. Army colonel William R. Higgins and CIA Station Chief in Beirut, William Buckley, as well as for the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, in which a U.S. Navy diver was killed. The terror group is also responsible for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that left 19 American servicemen dead.
The list, frighteningly continues, but the picture painted thus far rings loud and clear.
In terms of more recent developments, Hezbollah’s operations in the Middle East intensified with the onset of the second Lebanon War, when members of the militant group killed eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two others stationed in Israeli sovereign territory. In response, Israeli Defense Forces launched a series of strikes intended to remove the Hezbollah threat from its border. What ensued was a near-constant barrage of rocket and mortar fire into Israel. One estimate places the the number of rockets fired into Israel by Hezbollah during the conflict at roughly 4,000.
Since the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah operatives have been spotted around the world, most notably in Central and South America, leading national security experts to believe the terrorist group is collaborating with America and Israel-hostile regimes in Cuba and particularly, Venezuela.According to a report by the American Enterprise Institute, Hezbollah and its enablers in Iran have been “greatly expanding their operations in Latin America to the detriment of inter-American security and US strategic interests.”
AEI continues:
Today, Hezbollah is using the Western Hemisphere as a staging ground, fundraising center, and operational base to wage asymmetric warfare against the United States. Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and other anti-American governments in the region have facilitated this expansion by rolling out the welcome mats for Hezbollah and Iran.
It seems Hezbollah is now edging one step closer to American soil, and its intentions should undoubtedly be prompting the U.S. to take pause, and moreover, proper precautions.
Rumors of War III
Rumors of War III discusses the aforementioned Islamic groups and how they are infiltrating American society. Now that you have the background on who, and what, these militant organizations truly stand for, the documentary’s findings will prove all the more riveting.
