Islamic sectarianism is surging in Europe

The Israel-Hamas war undoubtedly loomed large over the UK General Election in July. In constituencies around the country, a sizeable number of candidates ran on a pro-Palestinian platform. In some areas, campaigns were run on strictly religious lines, with groups like The Muslim Vote encouraging British Muslims to only use their votes on pro-Palestine candidates. The group had some big successes, with five ‘pro-Gaza independents’ now sitting in parliament – four of which managed to unseat incumbent Labour MPs.

This rise of a new sectarianism is not limited to ‘the mother of all parliaments’. Across Europe, parties are emerging that campaign on anti-Zionist, if not outright Islamist, agendas. A newly formed European coalition called the Free Palestine Party (FPP) is the latest attempt to mobilise voters through anti-Israel sentiment and Muslim identity politics.

The FPP unveiled its platform earlier this year, in time for the 2024 EU parliamentary elections. It launched in Brussels, a city that is not only home to key EU political institutions, but also an abundance of radical Muslim organisations. Notably, Brussels serves as the base for the Belgian Muslim political party, Team Fouad Ahidar (TFA), which is also a member of the FPP coalition. Despite only being founded in February of this year, TFA secured an impressive 16.5 per cent of Flemish votes in the latest regional elections in June. It placed second and won three seats in the Brussels parliament.

According to liberal MP Guy Vanhengel, TFA ‘focusses heavily on Sharia’. It certainly doesn’t keep quiet about its anti-Israel prejudice, either. In November last year, shortly after the 7 October pogrom, TFA leader, the eponymous Fouad Ahidar, downplayed the atrocities as a ‘small response from one faction of Hamas to Israel’s actions’ in Palestine. He has also referred to Jews as ‘psychopaths’ and accused Israel of committing ‘genocide’. ‘I can use this term’, he said, ‘because I went to Auschwitz in Poland to see what genocide is, what a massacre is. I see the same methods being used today.’ Several Jewish organisations have since filed lawsuits against him.

In the neighbouring Netherlands, fellow FPP member NIDA (Arabic for ‘call’) is no better. Its party platform combines Islamism with woke and green ideology, calling for blasphemy laws and the right for public servants to wear religious symbols, as well as championing universal basic income and diversity. NIDA’s leader, Nourdin El Ouali, is known to have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood (the most important and influential Islamist organisation in the world) and its Palestinian offshoot, Hamas, as well as to the Union of Turkish Democrats, a European branch of Turkey’s governing Justice and Development (AK) Party.

NIDA isn’t the only FPP member with some suspicious Islamist links. The French Union des Démocrates Musulmans Français (UDMF) is considered the founder of the alliance and positions itself as an Islamic counterpart to traditional Christian Democratic platforms. As with NIDA, some party members have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. UDMF’s involvement in pro-Gaza demonstrations, where anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slogans have been chanted, has also drawn scrutiny in France.

The FPP’s party in Germany, the Alliance for Innovation and Justice (BIG), is considered an offshoot of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AK Party. Its Islamist roots don’t end there. Bilal Uwe Wilbert, a member of BIG’s executive board, has acted as a keynote speaker at several Al-Quds Day demonstrations. These were first established in 1979 by Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini to rally the Islamic world for the ‘liberation’ of Jerusalem. BIG’s deputy chairman, Ismet Misirlioglu, is also active with Inssan and Islamic Relief Germany, two groups that have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamic Relief has even been banned in Israel for supporting Hamas, although in Germany it is regarded as a benign humanitarian organisation.

Less is known about the Spanish FPP party, the ‘Islamic-Humanist’ Andalusi Party. Its manifesto frequently emphasises multiculturalism and argues that the ‘Western way’ is no longer sustainable. Its Facebook page is filled with radically anti-Israel content. In a recent interview with online magazine Hyphen, party leader Dris Mohamed Amar said: ‘Western countries advocate a two-state solution, but we believe the state of Israel is not legitimate and should therefore not exist.’

Ultimately, the FPP’s performance in the recent EU elections was relatively small and not a single candidate from any of the parties won a seat in the European Parliament. But the extra-parliamentary influence of its members should not be underestimated. Tying a ‘pro-Palestine’, and even explicitly Islamist cause, with woke social-justice issues and climate change could be a winning strategy for the FPP in future.

In the UK and parts of Western Europe, the first voices are warning of this resurgence of sectarian politics. A year after the 7 October pogrom, anti-Israel demonstrations and campus protests still persist across London, Brussels and Berlin. Large sections of the left are increasingly positioning themselves as defenders of radical Islam, while the political establishment is either unwilling or unable to confront the new wave of anti-Semitism. We are witnessing the early stages of something deeply sinister.

Mark Feldon works as a journalist, author and translator in Berlin. His book, Interregnum: Was kommt nach der liberalen Demokratie, is available now.