The west can’t ignore Islamism anymore

Donald Trump has just made one of the most significant and consequential announcements of his presidency.  His executive order initiating a process to designate the Muslim Brotherhood’s architecture in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan as foreign terrorist organisations marks the end of Western complacency against Islamist extremism within their own countries. 

The amorphous and grassroots nature of the Muslim Brotherhood – which operates through any number of civil society organisations, including charities and schools – has always made it difficult for policymakers to counter its malicious influence on society.  It has thrived in this environment.

Instead, the UK and other allies targeted the more outwardly ‘militant’ wings of the movement – Hamas, Al-Qaeda and ISIS.  But this has represented a wholesale failure to grapple with the root of the problem.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s ideological impact can be seen everywhere. From the hateful weekly pro-Palestinian protests which have made London a no-go zone for Jews to the extremism spewed by imams at mosques and cultural centres across the UK and beyond.  Violent pro-Hamas rhetoric has been normalised at music festivals. Every day, social media users around the world are confronted with footage of shocking acts of criminality and extremism from Islamists and their useful idiot left-wing bedfellows in British towns and cities. British police have even tried to ‘contextualise’ violent calls for jihad.  Sectarian politics is now in the ascendancy.

The passivity of the British authorities is incomprehensible. It is hard to see this occurring in a country I love so dearly and regard as a global bastion of freedom and equality.

Jewish friends in the UK speak of their fear. I hear of reports of mezuzahs being removed and Jewish students feeling unable to attend lectures amidst hostility on campus. It is heartbreaking.

It also happens to be a world away from the warm embrace Jews receive in the United Arab Emirates, where we have adopted a no-nonsense approach to the Muslim Brotherhood and its spiderweb of affiliate entities. Much of the Muslim world has long since come to terms with the corrosive effect this Islamist movement has had on our societies and its role in preventing our region from moving to a new era of peace and prosperity.  The UAE, like its neighbours, will not negotiate with terror; we dismantle it.

The UAE and other peace-supporting nations act because the Islamist dogma of the Muslim Brotherhood has unleashed decades of bloodshed across our region – and Europe has suffered from the very same terror. In Sudan alone, the Muslim Brotherhood-led army – known locally as the “Hamas of Africa” – is responsible for the deaths of several hundred thousand innocent people. They openly celebrated the October 7th massacre and have used Iranian-supplied drones and even chemical weapons.

The last two years of war between Israel – a key ally of my country – and genocidal terror groups were instigated by Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood’s military wing. The devastating 7 October terror rampage in Israel was the logical conclusion of this ideology when it is allowed to go unchecked.

We must be clear-eyed.  Antisemitism may be a core tenet of the movement, but the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideological mission is no different from its bedfellows al-Qaeda and ISIS – a caliphate governed under sharia law.  Its ideological founders advocated doing so via the transformation of the state and political system from within.  Muslims are to be piecemeal segregated from the ‘decadent’ Western societies within which they live.

The last national debate in the UK about the Muslim Brotherhood was over a decade ago under the government of David Cameron.  A major review confirmed the true nature of the Muslim Brotherhood and its ideological war against British values and national interest. And yet no steps were taken.  Ten years on from this missed opportunity, and the threat has only grown larger.

The UK government doesn’t have the luxury of ignoring this danger any longer.  Britain is being eroded from within by a threat operating in plain sight.  The Trump administration’s approach is well-considered – by targeting the movements’ affiliates in the region, U.S. authorities will build an invaluable intelligence picture of the links back to their own country.  It is a shift in policy that the UK should hurriedly embrace.

• Amjad Taha is a social media influencer who promotes the normalisation between Arab countries and Israel