Hamas and Hezbollah: How Iran Is Secretly Infiltrating Europe
by Robert Williams • May 3, 2024 at 5:00 am
"Hamas sees Western countries such as Germany as a refuge in which the organization can concentrate on collecting donations, recruiting new supporters, and spreading its propaganda." — Germany's domestic intelligence service, apnews.com, November 23, 2023.
In February, Belgium's justice minister confirmed that Hamas operates in Brussels... through a network of front companies raising funds for the terrorist organization... Belgian authorities nevertheless continue to allow Hamas to operate there.
"Hamas has been in Europe for about 30 years. It's an open secret. Of course, they don't call themselves Hamas... They will have names like Conference of Palestinians Abroad, Palestinians in (country name), Palestinian Students Abroad, and so on. But when you dig a bit, you find out who the people are behind these associations, and what their connections are back home. It's always the same cluster of 20-25 people. Their propaganda, their social media patterns, everything is Hamas." — Lorenzo Vidino, director of the program on extremism at George Washington University, April 12, 2024.
"This is a typical Muslim Brotherhood tactic. They come up with a million different names for their organizations, for two reasons: Firstly, they want to give the impression that it's a broad movement, so that when they organize a public event, there will be 50 participating organizations, or if they publish a public letter, there will be 50 signatory groups. Secondly, if one of these groups is taken down by law enforcement, well, there's all the other ones." — Lorenzo Vidino, April 12, 2024.
In all of this, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is a central actor. As stated by the US Congress, the IRGC "trains, funds, arms, and shares intelligence with dangerous proxy forces throughout the Middle East and abroad" and has targeted both European and American civilians.
The US Congress, Israel and thousands of Iranians have urged the European Union to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization. Last year, by an overwhelming majority, the European Parliament passed a resolution to that effect, but the EU nevertheless refuses to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell claims there are legal obstacles; however, that claim has been refuted as a lie.
Iran has ballistic missiles that can reach Europe, and is one minute away from nuclear weapons capability, if not already there.
The terrorist threat to Europe from the Islamic Republic of Iran -- and Hamas and Hezbollah, its proxies -- is growing. European leaders, however, are absorbed with trying to prevent Israel from eliminating the military capabilities of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, even though that would diminish the ability of these terrorists to operate in Europe.
Even before the October 7 massacre in Israel by Hamas, Mossad Director David Barnea said in September 2023 that Israel's intelligence services, in cooperation with their foreign partners, had prevented 27 terrorist attacks orchestrated by the Iran just over the last year, "all over the world, in Europe, Africa, the Far East and South America."
