Hamas is trying to go global

For some years, there has been speculation in security circles about what will replace Islamic State. The terror group was smashed by an American-led coalition five or so years ago – a campaign that incurred, by the way, a heavy civilian death toll but provoked no protests in the west. Although it remains active in Africa and the Middle East, it is no longer the threat that it was. Its absence left a vacuum. The question was what would fill it.

Now we may have the answer. Welcome to the era of Hamas International, a period which is likely only beginning. Yesterday, it was revealed that a plot by the terror group to kill Jews in Europe was foiled by German and Danish police, with Denmark’s prime minister saying it was ‘as serious as it gets’. Hamas, it seems, is going global.

This is quite the development for an indigenous Palestinian terror group that gained popularity precisely on the back of its local appeal. In the late Eighties, the sales pitch was simple: unlike those corrupt jet-setters from the Palestine Liberation Organisation, we are authentic children of the street who share your struggles and destiny. Fast forward to the present, of course, and its leaders live the lives of billionaires in Qatar while their people suffer in a war of their own instigation. Alongside the departure from its foundational values that accompanies money and success, the terror group is mutating into an international franchise. Those arrested include Egyptian, Lebanese and Dutch citizens. So far as we know, not one was Palestinian.

Given the worldwide brand recognition that 7 October bestowed upon Hamas, this is hardly a surprise. Where once impressionable and disaffected young Muslims in the west became enchanted by the black banner of Isis, these days they are in danger of turning gooey over Hamas’s green flag. Both groups offer the same thing: the glamour of televised ultra-violence and social media savvy, combined with resistance against the decadent west and the allure of the eternal underdog. Jihadi John meets Che Guevara, if you will. Bin Laden meets James Dean. Heady stuff.

To make matters worse, there already exists an extensive Hamas network across Europe, established in the days before the whole group was blacklisted. In Britain, that moment came in 2021; prior to that, its ‘political wing’ was able to act freely, gaining London the questionable reputation of being Hamas’s continental funding hub (as I revealed in these pages back in 2021).

British enforcement has since been characteristically feeble. Many resources are required to investigate and uproot networks that have turned covert. Given the lack of enthusiasm shown by plod when it comes to cracking down on the weekly marches, it is hardly surprising that Hamas members remain alive and kicking in this country.

Worse still, Iran has grown to become a principal backer of the group. In February, the Jewish Chronicle revealed that Tehran’s IRGC spies were mapping prominent British Jews to be targeted by assassination squads in the event of war with Israel. The security minister, Tom Tugendhat, later confirmed this. Similarly, Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy group, has blown up Jewish targets in Argentina and plotted terror attacks in Britain; a Mossad tip-off allowed MI5 to dismantle a Hezbollah bomb factory in northwest London. It is no great leap to imagine this playbook being adopted by Hamas cells on these shores, now that it has become the most charismatic terrorist brand in the world.

That charisma raises the spectre of an even more elusive threat: the lone wolf. It is easy, if deeply chilling, to envision a disenfranchised young man watching the endless BBC footage of death and destruction in Gaza – presented, of course, with lashings of sympathy, hatred for Israel and little criticism of Hamas – and reaching for a kitchen knife. We suffered such attacks at Fishmongers’ Hall and London Bridge, under the aegis of the Saudi terror group Al-Muhajiroun and Islamic State. I myself reported on those atrocities and the others across Europe, from the Bataclan onwards. They are extremely hard to stop. 

The possibility of a loosely-affiliated or entirely independent cell being inspired by Hamas and radicalised into action is a real one. On Tuesday, Matt Jukes, the head of Britain’s counter-terror operations, said there was a ‘real risk’ of a low-tech, freelance attack against the backdrop of the war in Gaza. Police analysts were seeing ‘red lights blinking everywhere’, he said.

So the trauma suffered in remote Israel comes a step closer to home. Since 7 October, I have consistently warned that, in the words of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews. Remember the siege of the Hypercacher kosher supermarket in Paris in 2015, in which four Jewish hostages were murdered? Two days earlier, 12 non-Jewish journalists were massacred at the Charlie Hebdo magazine. Hamas’s hatred for Jews is simply the most prominent expression of the hatred it holds for us all. 

I can’t believe I’m about to write this. But these are the times we live in, and one can’t shy away from the truth. Islamic State was viewed with widespread revulsion across the country. The Britain of 2023, by contrast, is flowing with degrees of sympathy for the same glamorous, misunderstood Hamas jihadis that are quietly demanding our heads. It is sheer idiocy. We are becoming the midwives of our own destruction.