Hamas Is Here: New Center Monograph Documents The Jihadist Network Inside The United States

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HAMAS has long been known as a Middle East terror organization that declares in its foundational Covenant that the obliteration of Israel is its raison d’etre and regularly fires missiles and digs tunnels across the border from Gaza to make that happen. But until now, its extensive networked presence here in the United States has been less well-understood, largely because of HAMAS’ success in disguising its operations through an array of front groups.

To cut through the web of HAMAS deceit, veteran Middle East analyst and author Ilana Freedman brings another volume in the Center for Security Policy Press’ Civilization Jihad Reader series, HAMAS, CAIR & the Muslim Brotherhood. As she explains in her highly readable yet fact-rich style, the Muslim Brotherhood (of which HAMAS is the Palestinian franchise) sought to expand into this country soon after World War II. But it really established a solid foothold with the founding in 1993 of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) by the top HAMAS operatives in the United States at the time.

As Freedman explains in her in-depth treatment of the 2008 Holy Land Foundation/HAMAS terror funding trial, while CAIR may be the most directly tied of the HAMAS branches inside the U.S., hundreds of other Brotherhood front groups all share the same objective, as spelled out in the Brotherhood’s 1991 Explanatory Memorandum. That objective is “destroying…Western Civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands [meaning those of the infidels]….” Unlike in the Middle East, where HAMAS’ Gaza operation confronts Israel kinetically and constantly, inside the U.S., the preferred method thus far has been “civilization jihad” – the stealthy, subversive use of infiltration, subversion and deception to pursue the destruction of the pillars of American society “from within.” By posing as “moderate” Islamic alternatives to the vicious violence of the likes of al Qaeda, the Islamic State or Taliban, the U.S. Brotherhood front groups have enjoyed remarkable success in advancing this agenda.

That is largely because Americans are all-too-often are unprepared to recognize deceit when it is employed in a sustained, disciplined fashion by skilled professionals. Consequently, as documented in a number of CSP Press’ other Civilization Jihad Reader Series offerings, key U.S. constituencies – notably, in academia, the courts and legal system, faith communities, government at all levels, local law enforcement and society in general – have failed to recognize that they are under assault by Brotherhood-associated individuals and groups. This is all the more shocking given that the latter’s loyalty to the triumph of Islam’s supremacist Sharia doctrine and to jihad to establish its dominance worldwide is of a piece with the ambitions of other jihadist groups.

Ilana Freedman cuts through such confusion, cognitive dissonance and willful blindness to exposes one group after another that represent themselves as not-for-profit organizations, Muslim advocacy representatives, or legitimate businesses for the jihadist front group they really are. For example, in addition to CAIR, she highlights the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) and many more tied to the Muslim Brotherhood by the Department of Justice in the Holy Land Foundation trial.

Of particular importance is Freedman’s examination of how the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood has evolved with its formation in 2014 of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO). Her analysis of the USCMO’s known links not only to jihadist fronts but to groups like Black Lives Matter and the Saul Alinsky-type anarchists that cluster under the name “Antifa” is especially timely as we see these apparently disparate groups form connections in a common drive to destroy America’s constitutional Republic. In addition, Freedman connects all these dots to national level donors and funders who enable such subversive operations to function.

In the following video, Center for Security Policy Vice President for Research and Analysis, Clare Lopez, who serves as the editor-in-chief of the “Terror Jihad” collection and its companion, the “Civilization Jihad Readers Series,” introduces the Center’s new monograph, HAMAS, CAIR & the Muslim Brotherhood.

Upon the publication of Ilana Freedman’s new monograph, Center’s President, Frank J. Gaffney, observed:

The damage to U.S. national security wrought by the subversive operations of HAMAS and other Muslim Brotherhood groups is less immediately visible than acts of violent terrorism. But in the long-term, it is these civilization jihadists’ relentless corrosion of the pillars of America’s society that poses the most grave threat to our Republic.

The Center is pleased to present the latest addition to our Civilization Jihad Reader series, HAMAS, CAIR & the Muslim Brotherhood as an important contribution to exposing and countering this insidious peril inside our country.