Transcription
You said there are three capitals of Islamists in the world and that was Doha, Qatar, Turkey and then horrifically you mentioned London, UK.
This is the most significant, the most efficient and the most powerful project of political Islam.
When you Google the Muslim Brotherhood, you can't really find that much information about it. It was designed in its very nature to operate as a secret society because we have people who are fundamentally against everything we stand for.
What are some of the things that the Muslim Brotherhood has achieved?
Mainstreaming Islamism, the most comprehensive report ever written on the BBC, almost 400 people that I examined and investigated BBC Arabic. The overwhelming majority of them either had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood or other terrorist organizations. And this is all funded by the British taxpayer.
Yes.
Unbelievable.
As long as you serve my aims, as long as you serve my goals, you can be part of this family. There really is no equivalent. And that's why it's fascinating. My name is Stefan Thompson. I'm the founder of Visrad 24. And today I am in London in the UK with Khaled Hassan who is an expert on extremism and specifically Islamist extremism. And today he will tell us all about how Europe and especially the United Kingdom has become a capital, a base, an operating base of for Islamists. Khaled Hassan, great to have you on.
Nice being with you. Yes, thanks for having me.
Just before we started this interview, you said there are three capitals of Islamists in the world and that was Doha, Katar, Turkey and then horrifically you mentioned London, UK.
Yes. Yes.
Explain what you meant.
Yes. Uh yes. It's very interesting actually because if you look at the Muslim Brotherhood, you're going to see that since President Cece took over and essentially toppled the Muslim Brotherhood President Muhammad Morris from Egypt, there was essentially a campaign, a regional campaign led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt to get rid of the Muslim Brotherhood. So they scattered around the world but mainly they went to Istanbul, they went to DHQatar and they went to London and the serious challenge we face.
Explain before before you you explain what the Muslim Brotherhood is for for those unfamiliar what is the Muslim Brotherhood and you mentioned Egypt specifically. Why does the story start in Egypt?
So the story starts in Egypt actually because the Muslim Brotherhood was established during a time when Egypt was under British occupation. So we're talking mostly in the 40s. This is when they really got to be quite you know influential and powerful.
And it's I would say the most efficient the most wellorganized organization on the planet. That's how I would describe it because the Muslim Brotherhood has had incredibly powerful enemies. What does the Muslim Brotherhood stand for?
So the Muslim Brotherhood is essentially a transnational movement. It does not recognize national borders. It's a movement that has a set of ideas, Islamist ideas that symbolize political Islam. This is the most significant, the most efficient and the most powerful project of political Islam. They want they want to essentially it's I wouldn't say necessarily you know establish a caliphate but they want to have leaders who subscribe to the their values in different countries and that's part of the plan that's part of the project. So if you have a Muslim Brotherhood president in Egypt and if you have the same in the UE and Saudi Arabia you know across the region then you essentially have a caliphate in anything but name.
What does it mean to be a a member of the Muslim Brotherhood? When when you Google, The reason I'm asking you this is when you when you Google the Muslim Brotherhood, it's not like when you Google ISIS and you get these images of terrorists on pickup trucks, you know, shooting around and and doing beheadings. When you Google the Muslim Brotherhood, it's all incredibly secretive. It it's you can't really find that much information about it.
Yes. Because it's a secret society. It was it was designed in its very nature to operate as a secret society which is why it's very dangerous. So you will find liberals who are part of the Muslim Brotherhood. They're members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Liberal Muslims.
No liberals generally even.
Liberals.
Yes. You're going to find non-Muslim liberals who subscribe to the values of the Muslim Brotherhood who support the Muslim Brotherhood and they maintain a different level of membership. That's why this organization is so incredibly efficient.
So, so it's set up in the ' 40s.
Yes.
It's in Egypt, British occupation.
Then the Brits leave.
Yes.
But the Muslim Brotherhood is still there.
Yes. So, it sets itself up as a nationalist, you know, anti-western, anti-imperialist movement.
Okay.
And that's why it gains a lot of support because obviously it says, look, you know, Islam, you know, we need our countries. We need, you know, to liberate our countries. So it gets gets really popular.
And President Sadat joins.
Okay.
You know, and when he was a military officer and President Nasser was a member when he was also a military officer and many many of Egypt's most influential politicians were actually members and then they have conflicts and then they essentially split and go their separate ways. But the most fascinating thing is the Muslim Brotherhood has partnerships with the most unlikely partners. So you will find that they use different people including again like I said liberal leaders, liberal politicians.
As partners and they partner together whether whether it's in lawsuits, media campaigns, whatever they need. They are extremely pragmatic. You don't have to be a Muslim to sort of maintain a different level of of membership. So that's the thing. They have different levels of partnerships memberships and that means that you can be whatever you are as long as you serve my aims as long as you serve my goals you can be part of this family. And they also operate on you know a cellular sort of level. So you would have families they called them essentially. So you would have one man who leads a family of 10 brothers and sisters and this family does not know other families in the same neighborhood. It's that level of secrecy. So if one family is arrested, you know, me and you, we could be members of the Muslim Brotherhood, but we don't know, you know, that's that's how that's how efficient it is. No, I'm serious. It's we don't know each other, you know, like you you would be sat somewhere with someone and you both are members in a way but you don't actually know each other.
It's like the Freemasonry of the Islamic world.
The Freemasonry is completely different. You know, Freemasonry does not have political aims. Freemasonry, you know, Freemasonry is also not a secret society. You know, they would say we are a society of a.
Yes. Yes. In a way, yes. It's fascinating. It's like I said there really is no equivalent and that's why it's fascinating.
But explain to me because we just to go back step by step bear in mind you are an expert in this. So so the questions I'm asking are super basic. So so but I I want to walk walk you walk through this with you how does it spread from Egypt beyond? How big is the reach of the Muslim Brotherhood? Where is.
It's everywhere. It's everywhere.
It's a global move. I would probably argue there is not a single country where you do not have someone who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood.
And there is it's a hierarchical organization. There is a leader there's a leader who's in charge of all the chapters of or are there national chapters? So is the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria different to the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza different to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt different to the Muslim Brotherhood in London or do they all report back?
Is it like a pyramid? is do they report back higher up?
That's that's the beauty of this. There is no reporting mechanism because even the president or you know al- Murid as they would call him the the you know the man who guides the movement. He guides the movement spiritually. He makes the big decisions you know he's sort of issues fatwas somehow.
Mhm.
But you don't really need him when he's jailed when he's killed when whatever is happening. You have the foundations and the rules that you operate by. You know what you're doing. And because it relies also on zaka which is the Muslim obligation to give charity.
One of the five pillars of Islam.
Yes. So zaka is you know you have to give a certain percentage almost 2 or 3% to Muslim causes to you know poor people. It's you know and it's it's a it's it's something nice in a way you know because obviously you have to give to charity to poor people but they use that to go to Muslims and say look your charity is okay to give to me. So they operate financially, you know, these chapters, these families and and it really is fascinating because every, you know, like you have a national chapter and you have that splitting into smaller groups and the smaller groups splitting into families and you know you go back to the very grassroot movement which is like five or 10 people. They're accountants, they're doctors, you know, they are military officers. And because the membership is so secret, you know, the membership is essentially going into a place and saying a few words, like going into a room and saying a few words. That's that's basically it. You don't have, you know, a card for membership. You don't have it's it's it's almost impossible to find out. And they are also in Egypt's diplomatic service. They're in the military. They're everywhere because it's that easy.
What are some of the what are some of the things that the Muslim Brotherhood has achieved? What are some examples of terror attacks or or law cases or lawsuits? What are some of the things that you you could show us that show us the the impact and the power of the Muslim Brotherhood?
So the impact and the power of the Muslim Brotherhood is in my view mainstreaming Islamism. So they have gone in the west and essentially said it's Islamophobic to say we're afraid of political Islam. And that in my view is the greatest achievement.
Wow.
By the Muslim Brotherhood because now we are in a position where if you believe that Islamism poses a threat to Western values, to western societies, you're an Islamophobe. And this for me is almost unthinkable. Now the other thing they did was this coalition between Islamists and the left.
Uhhuh.
So you know liberals who believe you know in tolerance and you know being nice to people weaponize this in a way to align them with the Islamist views. So now we have this alliance that is increasingly dangerous. But on the ground you have Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood in Israel. is Kamas the the Gaza chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood?
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And they themselves admit this. So you're going to find a lot of Palestinian uh leaders who would say one of them was asked why why need the why need Hamas, you know, you had different factions who were fighting Israel. That was a question posed to one of the Palestinian leaders. and he said simply because the Muslim Brotherhood they wanted their own Palestinian movement and that's Hamas.
Mhm.
And they have engaged so we're going to talk you know they engaged in lawsuit against Israel which is essentially the genocide claim that's mostly you know empowered and reinforced by Muslim Brotherhood members across the West. And they've done the same against UEE with Sudan. They say Sudan supports uh essentially different groups in in in the UE supports different groups in Sudan which means they're also engaged in genocide because they're engaged in the conflict and involved in the conflict in Sudan now.
So it's the same conflict in Sudan is between the Sudanese armed forces led by General Alburan.
Yes.
And he is fighting against the RSF.
Yes. The RSF. Yes. Rapid supported forces. Yes. And the UAE is backing one of those sides.
Yes. So the UAE is backing RSF. They would probably, you know, deny backing them militarily. They would probably say, "We just send aid. We just send that stuff." Generally speaking, you know, they are backing a movement that is anti-Islamist. The UE backs anti-Islamist movements.
Alhan, the leader, the the military leader of Sudan is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. So what we know for a fact is that the military involves at least a faction that is strong enough to influence things within the military. So you can say he's aligned at least. That's what we can say. He's at least aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.
And he is an Islamist.
And he's an Islamist. Yes. Exactly. So that's what we can say, you know, based on facts again. A and what other examples of um what other examples of was ISIS part of the Muslim Brotherhood?
I wouldn't say so. I wouldn't say ISIS was part of the Muslim Brotherhood because ISIS operates in a completely different way. ISIS is.
What other movements before we get too confused. What other movements around the Middle East are part of the Muslim Brotherhood or Muslim Brotherhood aligned?
Yes. So I would probably say you have in Libya there is a Muslim Brotherhood movement that is also involved in the conflict. You have in Yemen the same. You have a Muslim Brotherhood movement that is involved in the conflict. You have in Tunisia. Tunisia which is obviously you know it was the home of the Arab Spring.
Of course.
You have a huge Muslim Brotherhood movement. Uh Kuwait is actually now pretty much in parliament. There is a huge influence by the Muslim Brotherhood which is why Kuwait is unlike other Gulf countries is not considering normalization with Israel is extremely more anti-semitic than most Gulf countries now and it's it's a serious issue now for the Gulf. Uh you also have someone like Yusf Karadawi Ysef Karadawi who was a prominent uh Islamist preacher and he was based in Dhqatar and he's part of the Muslim Brotherhood. So again, it's it's fascinating because when you look when you try to identify who is aligned or part of the Muslim Brotherhood, you don't really have more than not one their actions, what they're doing. Does it serve the Muslim Brotherhood's vision? Is it aligned with the global movement of the Muslim Brotherhood? So you're going to see they mobilize for the same reasons. And they tell you this is Islam. We're mobilizing for Islam. But you're going to see almost at the same time the UAE and Saudi Arabia who are Muslim countries, very proud Muslim countries doing the exact opposite.
And that's very helpful in identifying who's pro the Muslim Brotherhood or aligned with it and who is against it essentially. Tell me more about how the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the West.
Yes. So let's look at the UK because the UK is is really deeply challenging I would say. So there was some sort of you know a process where the Egyptian and the Turks uh Erdogan by the way is very closely aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood. So he accepted a lot of the people who fled Egypt.
After presidency ousted Murray.
And gave them asylum. Mhm.
But then he realized we're in trouble. You know, we are in trouble regionally. We have a lot of enemies. And he tried to sort of, you know, fix things up, let's say, with with with his uh with other countries across the region. So the Egyptian intelligence demanded of their counterparts in Turkey to either deport Muslim Brotherhood figures or silence them. So tell them you cannot, you know, do your talk shows and all that stuff. Most of them fled to the UK because of using the UK's liberal values against us. Now, you're going to find they have professors in universities teaching in Middle East programs. So, if you are a British student and you want to learn about the Middle East, it makes sense that they hire obviously someone who speaks Arabic, someone who's a Muslim because, you know, you want to learn about the Middle East and the Islamic world. They infiltrated this so successfully that you will now see professors who wrote books romanticizing Hamas saying Hamas is a liberation movement.
And that is how extremely successful they are. BBC Arabic is one of the biggest consumers of Muslim Brotherhood publications. It hosts a lot of their professors, their leaders, and they're presented as, you know, legitimate, credible voices. That's that's BBC Arabic. I I part of my contribution to Trevor Assen's report on the BBC, which is the most comprehensive report ever written on the BBC and its bias was examining the people they interviewed, the reporters, everything. Almost 400 people that I examined and investigated. That's BBC Arabic. The overwhelming majority of them either had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, ties to Hamas or other terrorist organizations.
And this is all funded by the British taxpayer.
Yes.
Unbelievable.
So that's and I want to talk now about a case Mortazm he fled Turkey and came to the UK. So this man, he arrived in the UK in December 2021.
Okay.
His support for proscribed organizations, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood.
He was a a YouTuber.
Yes, he was in Egypt. He was actually a broadcaster. So, he had his TV show in Egypt.
So, he was famous in.
Oh, yes. Yes. Very famous. Very famous. And then he, like I said, moved to Turkey after, you know, the Muslim Brotherhood were essentially uh just exiled. And in 2021, you know, the Turks and the Egyptians talk and they say to him, "Look, you know, you're going to have to leave Turkey now because we want to, you know, fix things up with Egypt." And he arrives in in London in December 2021. This is a man. He's been he was given a visa by the UK government.
Not asylum, a visa. And I'm not sure if it's a work visa or whatever, but they had enough money and they had enough connections to get the lawyers to work for him in the UK to get him the visa, you know, a work visa, which is very hard to get in the UK if you're not British as many people would know. So he arrives in December 2021 and he has years and years of recordings where he is supporting terrorism, being anti-semitic, calling for the murder of Jews, calling and this is one of the most popular people in the Arab world. What's fascinating is I talked to my mom who's Muslim.
Sure.
Before he left, before he left Turkey.
And I said, you know, there is news about this guy. Where do you think he will go? And he said, of course he's going to go to London. That's a Muslim woman in her 60s.
Yeah.
Of course he's going to go to London. Everyone knows he's going to go to London. It is it is that obvious to Muslims that London is just now home, you know, it's the home of the Muslim Brotherhood.
So, you led a campaign against Mo, how do I how do I say.
Mazm? Yes.
Motaz Mut.
Yes. Yes.
You led a campaign. You investigated this man.
Yes. I investigated him, you know, as you know, completely on a volunteer basis. I would sit at home, you know, translating the stuff he said, translating the stuff that he was already saying in the UK and sending all that stuff to conservative uh friends of Israel, sending all that stuff to Pretty Patel. She was back then home secretary.
Sure.
Now, what's fascinating about the British government is there are two things here.
One.
By law, they cannot discuss individual cases.
Mhm.
So, if I said to them, "This guy is a terrorist. He's a rapist. He's whatever he is. And here's the evidence. They cannot discuss his case publicly. So that's a dead end. We're not going to do anything about it. We cannot even discuss it. Go away.
Wow.
That's offtheshelf response.
Yeah.
So whoever is in government.
Yeah.
Labor conservative, you know, if we have reform one day, if things remain the same, we can't even discuss it, let alone do anything about this. So I was told by Pretty Patel's office, you know, I was given an off-the-shelf response that said, "We cannot discuss this because this is an individual case. We really care about the Jewish community. We are completely, you know, against anti-semitism, blah blah blah blah blah." An off-the-shelf response that meant nothing was done. And then comes October 7th. After October 7th, he makes a video saying, "October 7th is the happiest day of my life."
Wow.
I am so delighted they killed that many. And I'm even more happy that they kidnapped that many because kidnapping those that that many Israelis and Jews means that the Israeli army will not be able to operate in Gaza because they will want their people back. And I went mental to be honest. I wrote to the home secretary. I wrote to everyone and I can show you the email. Actually, I can send you the email. And I was just like, what are you playing at? I warned you for two years. This is a terrorist.
You've allowed him to operate from the UK for two years.
Wow.
This is when uh Robert Generick, Tom Tugenhard, and Swellow Braverman took the very brave decision and completely revoked his visa in November 2023.
Where is he now?
He went to Spain. So, that was the first move. I tracked him down. He was in Spain.
Uhhuh.
And God knows where he is now. I have no idea where he is, but he's back on YouTube. Uh, you know, this is a shout out to YouTube, which is really an excellent platform for platforming terrorists for many reasons. And, you know, this is where he is now. He's back to his usual stuff. Uh, he knows me obviously, and the Muslim Brotherhood knows that this is my worksh.
They threatened, you know, a lawsuit. They threatened all different stuff. It's nonsense. Let them do whatever they want. Obviously, it's, you know, it's nonsense. I'm not, you know, I'm not intimidated by this.
But the funny thing is, we still have his best mates in the UK. One of them, M, sorry, not Mart um his name is Gish, last name is Geish. And he openly says he's Muslim Brotherhood. They have now their biggest platform, a TV channel called Mikamelen operating from London.
Mhm.
And this man was granted asylum.
Around the same time. Actually, sorry, a few years before Mortaz Mat, he was the one to receive Mortazm in London when he came over. You know, this was the guy to go and get him from the airport and meet him and oh, you know, the legend is here in London. and they granted him, his wife, his children, his mom, his dad asylum in the UK. And let's talk about the funding of these organizations. Obviously, you mentioned Zakat. So, there is a large uh people are saying there's up to four million, perhaps even five, five and a half according to some million Muslims living in the United Kingdom.
Yes.
Is that zakat? Is this armsgiving a Muslim armsgiving is that the main source of funding for the Muslim Brotherhood or do they have foreign sources of funding like for example the Qatari government?
It's mainly three sources of funding. So zaka and Muslim businessmen and women.
Okay.
They play a huge part. If you're a billionaire, if you're a millionaire and you give your zaka to the Muslim Brotherhood, that's a lot of money.
Okay? If you even give more because you believe in the cause, that's a lot more money. And then there is obviously governments organizations.
And the charity sector especially is is very serious. So give your zaka to Gaza. All that money that is meant to be going to Gaza does not really go to Gaza.
Where is it going? It goes to those people basically because there is a concept in Islam where if you are collecting money for charity, you are elleible for part of that money to maintain your operations. So if you're the Muslim Brotherhood and you're collecting money for Gaza, let's say you make£10.
Yeah.
Out of those£10, you can take three essentially two or three.
For maintaining operations. Yes. Like a handling fee. Exactly. Like a commission if you will.
Sure.
So we have a serious issue with the charity sector in Britain. We have a serious issue with academia. Uh my wife studied at Durham uh you know for for her masters. One of the professors there he wrote a book saying Hamas is a liberation movement. So there is really this deep infiltration within all sectors of society. I had a conversation with rich civil servants not long ago and I asked this question. Is the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization? They said no. They fundamentally believe that it's not. There's been a debate in in the European Parliament. There are some factions in the European Parliament, the Swedish Democrats, Vox in Spain, um the Monan in France that are pushing to prescribe the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. The EU does not consider the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization.
Yes.
Why? Why is that? Why? Why? I mean and and recently the Senate in the US has been discussing prescribing designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror organization.
Yes. I'd probably say there are three reasons to this. One, just being naive.
Just being naive, believing, you know, in a democracy, which was an argument that was made by the Obama administration. By the way, in a democracy, you have to give Islamists a chance because they represent a big chunk of the population. So if you know this segment of society says we want to kill Jews, well it's democratic to give them that voice. So you know that's one one point. It's a democracy. You know the other point is a lot of people and this includes our security services. They're actually against proscribing the Muslim Brotherhood because they believe that this would mean they would go even deeper underground and they would become dangerous. That makes some that makes some sense as an argument.
I can understand that argument. That argument is actually the sort of a legitimate argument.
But but here here's the thing. So our police, let's look at the police for example. They're meant to police our streets without fear of favor.
Of course.
But we're driven by fear. If we're scared that they're going to go deeper under the ground and target us, then that's just fear. You're just afraid of them.
And terrorism.
But we should should we be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood? No, I would say no. Don't be afraid of them. Obviously, it's a massive organization. Obviously, it's dangerous, but we can take on anyone if you want to because we have to. That's, you know, this is like asking me, should we be afraid of the Nazis? Obviously, I understand your question is legitimate and your question is reasonable, but should we be afraid of the Nazis? You know, if we go back in the to the 40s and 30s, well, of course, yes. You know, they've got, you know, they're seriously evil people who have got the the capacity to do us harm. But so what? That's the question. And also you have to understand that the very basic definition of terrorism is the use of violence or the threat of using using violence for political, religious, social aims. So that means if you're scared of prescribing them because they might actually carry out attacks, then they have won. Then terrorism has actually won and achieved its goal.
How do we deal with the Muslim Brotherhood? How do we deal with Islamist radicals in the West? And and obviously I think a large part of this question is is there is certainly in France there's been a 72page report released by the Ministry of Interior about the Muslim Brotherhood and its operations in France. And there have been certainly in in France there have been many studies and France has a substantial Muslim minority. The vast majority of the Mcgrebies so Moroccans, Tunisians and Algerian and they are now second, third and even fourth generation.
Yes.
So they now have they usually don't even have passports from Algeria or Morocco. They they they only have French passports. Some of the studies have shown that second, third, fourth generation migrants are more radical than the people who initially made the move. So, so that has been fueling some of the radicalism. Where am I going with this question? How do we combat Islamists in the West when they cannot be deported because they're second, third, or fourth generation migrants? And how do we fight a a terrorist organization that people refuse to label a terrorist organization?
Well, we have to number one understand that things will get nasty one way or another. Things will get nasty.
What do you mean by that?
There will likely be some sort of violence in the UK or in France. I mean, if you go to President Mcron's statement, he said during the election that France faces a real risk of a civil war.
Did he say that?
Yes. He said it on record.
Civil war. The word civil war. Civil war.
Yes.
Wow.
Civil war. So here is a man who's a liberal.
But we're talking about civil war. By civil war, he means radical Muslims versus he means French.
Yes. Rad different radical movements. So he means far right in his view and he means far-left and Islamists and all these different segments in society. So we have to understand that the longer we delay this, the nastier it will get.
You do you believe that this is a possibility? I I.
Do you think there is a possibility of an October 7th style attack on French or UK or European soil?
At the moment, I don't believe so. I don't believe this is going to happen in the immediate term. Long term, I believe it's going to be more of a civil war style or, you know, potentially serious terrorist attacks because we have people who are fundamentally against everything we stand for. And the challenge is not enough people are talking about this. So the longer we delay it, the nastier it gets. If we go to your question how we deal with them again, we need to understand that things will at some point get nasty. The problem is our politicians and the way our democracy works means that every leader says I'm not prepared to deal with this. I'll pass it on to the next leader. Because for me it's a matter of four or five years, you know, 10 years at most and then I'm gone. So we need to recognize that things will get nasty. And in my view, we need to say like you were saying before before our chat that we need to make citizenship meaningful. We need to make sure that it actually means something.
You cannot I mean I'm British by naturalization, but no one asked me about my values. No one asked me what I believed in. You know, I could have been someone who believes that Israel is a state that should not exist.
Or that the UK should be Muslim.
Or that the UK should be Muslim.
Sure.
No one would say even, you know, a single word about this.
Sure.
So that's one thing. The I think one of the main issues that we also have to face is making sure that those people are excluded from public life. the people that we cannot deport at least for now that they hold no position in parliament they hold no position in the media at least, you know, media like the BBC that is funded by the taxpayer and they hold no position in government.
So to defend western liberalism we must become a liberal.
To a degree I don't think that's even actually a liberal. I don't think that's even becoming a liberal. I think what we need to do I mean President Sedat actually said something that was really interesting. He said you have to recognize that democracy has teeth and that it can bite back. Democracy is not passive. It cannot be under attack and do nothing. This is just democracy fighting back.
If you come with a set of values that are undemocratic, illiberal, we're just fighting back. We're not being illiberal. We're just fighting for our democracy. If you say we need to apply Sharia law, I mean you have seen a job advertised for a Sharia law administrator in the UK.
Yes, I've I saw that. It was insane.
Why why would anyone do this? Why would why would my money instead of going to helping children who need the NHS now?
Sure.
It goes to Sharia. Why? Who's doing that? Is that. And also with all due respect, we need to be normal. That's all I'm arguing. We need to understand that our military should defend our borders like anyone else. The UEE, the UK, the UEE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, everyone has their military defending their borders. But to say this today, are you saying that the military should go out and you know prevent illegal immigration through the channel?
Yes, I am saying that. Why not?
No, why not?
Why? I mean, Poland does it. Poland has, you know, military defending its borders. Everyone does. Why not? Why not us? Why are we so above this? China does it. Russia does it. You know, everyone else does it. The US now does it thankfully. So why not US? There is a country in in the Middle East that has banned the Muslim Brotherhood. The UAE has massively cracked down on any form of Islamism. Tell me about the UAE and and some of the solutions that that they have implemented.
What's actually really really embarrassing is it's the UEE, it's Saudi Arabia, it's Egypt, it's almost the entire Gulf with the exception of Qatar and Quu, you know, very limited countries who haven't banned them yet.
Mhm.
But here's what I can tell you from the inside of the UE knowing decision makers. They are now investing in a PR campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood, not in the UAE, but in the UK. So we now have Emiratis paid by the Emirati government to come to us and say, "Are you insane? What are you doing to your country?" Like, "Are you insane?"
Wow.
Wow.
They're paid by the by the Emirati government to fix our problems for us. What does the UAE know about the Muslim Brotherhood that that that we don't in the West?
Everything.
Exactly.
Everything. Yes.
I guess I've answered my own question.
Exactly. They speak the same language. They worship the same God. It's the same faith. It's the same region. It's the same people. It's Arabs. You know, the Muslim Brotherhood was established by Egyptians. And there is now also what what we find that to actually be really just unprecedented. Now the UEIE and Saudi Arabia and others are also directing their criticism towards Egypt for not doing enough to counter the Egyptian state does enough to counter the Muslim Brotherhood when it's a threat to President Cece's government but not actually to the extremism that they promote. So in a way Egypt is fighting Islamists not Islamism and that's a serious issue. So we now have the UE and Saudi Arabia leading the fight against extremists. And in my view, I think the UK government should just follow what they do. You don't need, you know, to reinvent a new system. You don't need to reinvent, you know, an entirely new playbook for fighting extremism. Those people have been doing it successfully. Just listen to them.
This reminds me all of a rather wonderful quote by by Christopher Hitchens who said, "Islamophobia is a word created by fascists used by cowards to manipulate morons."
Yes, precisely. And I think this sums up Britain. This is Britain. This is precisely it fits like a glove for Britain.
Khed, thank you so much. It was most illuminating. Thank you so much for your time and I really enjoyed it.
Yes, me too. Thanks very much for having me.