This article originally appeared in the National Post.
By Joe Adam George, May 24, 2024
Since the deadly October 7 attacks in Israel, much ink has been spilled on the naked antisemitism and anti-western hatred raging across major Canadian cities, even as concerns mount over radicalization, terrorism and foreign interference. While these are acute national security issues that should be appropriately addressed, they are merely symptoms of a far bigger and deadly threat that requires more attention: Islamism, or Islamist extremism.
This chronic and insidious ideology preys on the vulnerable and disenchanted with twisted notions of a divine purpose and the prospect of waging a holy war against infidels like us. Operating mostly under the radar, Islamism makes it quite hard for governments and security agencies to track, measure or even fully comprehend.
Just like their peers in al-Qaida or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) whom they celebrate and venerate, Islamists adopt low-sophistication, low-resource means of perpetrating high-impact violent acts. Or, as a counter-terrorism expert succinctly put it to me: Nike-styled “Just do it” terrorism. On the propaganda front, they possess uncontestable commitment and coordination as seen from the longevity and increasingly ugly nature of the pro-Hamas protests.
Unlike rogue state actors like Russia and China, what makes Islamists such a formidable force to reckon with is their ability to weaponize religion — in their case, Islam — to silence, punish and deter anyone, including liberal and ex-Muslims like Masih Alinejad, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salman Rushdie, who dare to publicly speak about, report on or denounce the movement.
Some of their popular intimidation tactics include: issuing fatwas (legal rulings on points of sharia law by recognized Islamic leaders) to kill, making dubious Islamophobia claims and conducting “legal jihad” by manipulating western laws and judicial systems with frivolous lawsuits to achieve strategic military and political goals.
For many Canadians, the 9/11 terror attacks and the 2014 Parliament Hill shootings were a wake-up call to the dangers of Islamic extremism. A 2017 Public Safety Canada report stated that more than 190 extremists with ties to Canada were suspected of engaging in terrorist activity abroad; at that time, the government knew of about 60 who had returned. In March, a mysterious propagandist associated with the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISIS-K), the group behind the recent Moscow terror attack that killed more than 140 people, was suspected of living in Canada.
Canada has now earned the unwanted distinction of becoming a hub for Islamist terror financing. A March report by the online publication Focus on Western Islamism noted that five groups with Islamist ties in Canada received at least $42 million in taxpayer funds from government departments between 2018 and 2022.
Yet, the deviant nature of Islamism and its long-term threats are poorly understood and often diminished by most Canadians including government leaders, media members and analysts. Many argue that because there have only been six successful jihadist attacks in Canada between 2000 and 2020, the country is much safer compared to most of its western peers. This illustrates a deeply flawed and complacent sense of security and a clear lack of understanding of our ideological enemies.
There’s an African saying: “Don’t think there are no crocodiles just because the river is calm.” Many Islamist groups are playing the long game, biding their time as they work to undermine and weaken their adversaries in the West. Conducting sensational terror attacks is by no means their sole or ultimate objective. The true international aspirations of Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and al-Qaida are genocidal and long-term — to destroy western societies, wage a global jihad, create a global caliphate and achieve the total annihilation of homosexuality, Judaism and Christianity.
Aiding their goals are their Islamist sympathizers in the West who resort to the use of transnational criminal gangs, social media, universities and questionable charities to conduct clandestine hybrid tactics such as spreading hateful propaganda, fundraising to support foreign armed militancy, radicalizing and recruiting youth, manipulating voters and threatening critics. Thanks to their well-established networks, Islamists are able to quickly mobilize resources and capitalize on the social tensions that erupt in the wake of global conflicts such as the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
The rampant anarchy on our streets and the recent arrests of youth in Ottawa and Calgary on terrorism charges prove their disruptive efforts have certainly succeeded. Yet, the Trudeau government remains wilfully blind to the dangers of youth radicalization and homegrown terrorism, even though there are obvious signs that Canada is struggling with them.
Canada’s lax attitude contrasts with that of Europe, where authorities have been warning about Islamist extremism — deemed to be an acute threat to the continent — even before the Oct. 7 attacks, foiling at least a dozen attack plans last year. A Hamburg-based “pop-Islamist” group with tens of thousands of western followers is being monitored by German intelligence for advocating for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. France has raised the national security alert system to its maximum level amid rising concerns over ISIS’s recruitment of French youth to conduct attacks in the country.
In the United Kingdom, nearly 50 per cent of Muslims sympathize with Hamas. Among those recently arrested in the counter-terrorism context, 20 per cent were children under the age of 18. Australian police arrested seven radicalized teenagers for their involvement in a knife attack in Sydney. One report released this year by the United-States-based Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy unearthed billions of dollars of illicit funding of American universities by foreign governments such as Qatar and Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which promote anti-democratic and antisemitic ideologies and have connections to terrorism.
Notwithstanding the controversial appointment of Amira Elghawaby as Canada’s Islamophobia czar, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s deafening silence on the Islamism threat — along with his reluctance to quickly and forcefully condemn the antisemitic mobs ruling our streets — is a barefaced dereliction of duty to Canadian citizens and a betrayal of the Jewish community. From the glorification of terrorism and cheering for the destruction of Canada, Israel and the U.S., to the Islamist mob’s total disregard for law and order, it is clear that Canada is sleepwalking towards an impending crisis of extremism.
During the early years of the Afghan War, after the Taliban lost multiple battles to the militarily superior forces of the U.S.-led coalition, a Taliban commander nonchalantly remarked: “You have the watches, but we have the time.” Sure enough, he was proven right when western troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban again seized power.
The brief hiatus following the “Operation Inherent Resolve” and the “Global War on Terror” campaigns of the U.S. has drawn to an end. As global security threats become more complex and serious, our national security matters must be devoid of identity politics and political correctness.
Time after time, our enemies have told us who they are and what they intend to do to us. It’s time for the Trudeau government to take appropriate countermeasures to prevent Canadian soil and taxpayer money from assisting an evil ideology that patiently but ardently seeks our demise.
Joe Adam George is a national security analyst on Middle East and South Asia affairs and has written for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
