At the end of November, a meeting was held in Brussels between senior Palestinian Authority officials and representatives of donor countries. On the agenda: examining the reforms the Authority committed to implement – chief among them stopping payments to terrorists and their families, a reform the Palestinians declared had already been carried out.

The Authority's commitment to reforms didn't stem from goodwill, but from financial distress. Unlike the past, the Europeans decided to stop serving as an "open wallet" and conditioned continued aid – hundreds of millions of euros – on meeting commitments.

A day before the meeting, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar issued an unusually detailed declaration: The Authority not only hasn't stopped payments to terrorists – it has actually increased them. The only change: instead of transferring the money through a designated fund, the Authority found alternative and covert channels.

The response from Brussels was unprecedented. "We understand that recently a payment was made to the families of prisoners," the Union stated in an unusual declaration. "We are very sorry about this decision. It appears to contradict previous statements. We have requested clarifications from the Palestinian Authority."

Palestinian Authority representatives, who arrived in Brussels expecting to raise additional funds, encountered rare criticism. During the meeting, several representatives of donor countries made clear – both to the Palestinians and to their friends in Europe – that part of the funds are conditioned on implementing the reforms.

The Palestinian representatives, unaccustomed to such criticism, committed to establishing a transparent fund that would reflect the transfer of money and to stop payments to terrorists. But they also understand that supervision over them has grown – not only from Israel, but also from the Europeans, whose credibility toward the Authority now lies on the table.

The Authority committed to stopping payments to terrorists back in February, and earned praise from world leaders – President Macron even cited this as a turning point. But in Israel, they didn't buy the deception. In Jerusalem, they understood that behind the declarations, the money continues to flow.

To substantiate the claims, Sa'ar led an effort based on intelligence from the IDF and other agencies. While the Palestinians prepared for the Brussels meeting, the Foreign Ministry led a covert campaign designed to block the space for denial – both by Authority officials and by Europeans who preferred to ignore.

Intelligence agencies prepared a report, but not all of it could be revealed publicly – parts of the evidence were redacted to protect intelligence sources. Once approved for distribution, the report was presented at every meeting with foreign ministers – so that no room for doubt remained: The Authority continues to pay, despite its declarations.

In parallel, a booklet was prepared that summarized the intelligence evidence. It was sent to Israeli ambassadors in major European capitals, who then passed the information directly to the foreign ministers in the countries where they serve.

"Intelligence indicates that the policy of payments to terrorists is still ongoing, despite the declaration about Abu Mazen's decree," the report stated. "This is done through various channels intended to conceal the continuation of payments, while presenting a false impression of reforms."

The report further stated: "The policy wasn't canceled but only disguised anew. Some payments are now channeled through alternative channels, creating a misleading impression of reform. In practice, the PA continues to finance and encourage terror. The PA continues to pay, just in a new method."

The report notes documentation of payment collection from Palestinian postal branches. It was further noted that terrorists who were released in the deal received salaries throughout their time in prison, and some even received additional grants from the Authority after their release.

The report also quotes Abbas himself, who said on February 25: "If we have only one penny left, it will be given to the prisoners and martyrs. I will not allow anyone to remove any commitment or penny given to them. They are more honored than all of us."

In mid-November, an Israeli delegation of intelligence personnel traveled to Brussels. They met with European Union officials and presented the Palestinian violations – which led the Union to acknowledge that the Authority is not meeting its commitments. The European Union is the largest donor to the Authority, and public criticism from it against the Authority is rare. Until now, the Union preferred to remain silent. Now, even in the Authority, they understand that continuing the payments could drag them into confrontation with their largest funder.

A Commission Spokesperson said to Israel Hayom: "We can confirm that a meeting took place between the Israeli Ambassador to the EU, Israeli delegation and Commission representatives to discuss a broad range of topics relating to the Middle East"

Vladimir Lenin, the architect of Russia's Communist Revolution and founder of the Soviet Union, is credited with the mocking phrase, "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." The Soviet tyrant expressed the idea that Westerners, driven by greed, would cooperate with the Communist revolution without understanding they were ultimately engineering their own downfall.

If Lenin, who died in 1924, were resurrected today and landed this week in the European Parliament corridors during the presentation of the new report on Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into Europe, he would have no choice but to update his prophecy. Greed has given way to blindness. Westerners no longer sell their enemies the rope. They finance it with their own money and cheerfully offer their necks to an enemy plotting their downfall, except now the enemy is cloaked in green.

The comprehensive report, submitted to EU institutions, was compiled by Dr. Florence Bergeaud-Blackler and Dr. Tommaso Virgili, two respected researchers of Islamism in Europe. They present a particularly disturbing situation: Europe is funding, sometimes unknowingly from taxpayer coffers, organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, and these organizations are advancing a subversive ideology aimed at changing the continent's face from within.

The organizational structure of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe is a maze, notes Charlie Weimers, a Swedish member of the European Parliament and the initiator of the report, hinting that only a few are capable and willing to delve into its depths. The Brotherhood operates a network of semi-independent groups connected to each other through shared ideology, family ties, and personal relationships. Those not part of the network will find it difficult to understand how it operates and will certainly struggle to track the flow of money sustaining it.

"Historically, we tended to ignore the Muslim Brotherhood because this movement barely existed on the continent," Weimers says in an exclusive interview with Israel Hayom's weekly magazine. "But the tide has turned. Three tectonic shifts created the change: a surge in the volume of Muslim immigration, the growth of a new generation of European-born Muslims who are aware of Europe's weaknesses and willing to exploit them, and the Muslim Brotherhood's deliberate effort to gain a foothold in the West."

One central insight emerges clearly from reading the report: if Europe does not wake up – immediately, now – it is lost. This grim conclusion rests on hundreds of examples and facts carefully collected by Bergeaud-Blackler and Virgili. They describe a rigged game: while European officials operate in their own world, a world of dry regulations, completely oblivious to what is taking shape outside government buildings, the Islamists have mastered the art of camouflage.

"The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe is like a wolf in sheep's clothing," Weimers explains. "Ostensibly, they abandon the path of violence and adopt a pragmatic appearance: willing to work with official systems, and especially to receive funding from them. But we must not fall into the trap: this tactical move is not genuine change. Their ultimate goal has remained as it was – to dismantle Europe's secular democratic institutions and establish a theocratic regime based on the Quran. Their target is a global caliphate, where all areas of life will be dictated by Islam and Sharia law, while pushing non-Muslims into the position of second-class citizens as dhimmi (non-Muslim protected persons living under Islamic rule). The Muslim Brotherhood is a totalitarian force, and must be treated as such."

The "Wasatiyya" method

How does the Islamist wolf don the hide of an innocent sheep? First and foremost, through decentralized action, via countless bodies that at first glance are not connected at all. Some are very small and hidden from view, disguised as authentic and legitimate organizations – mosques, nonprofits, welfare funds, community organizations, and more. Only experts, such as the report's authors, and security service personnel can identify the threads that connect them into a single network. Even their work does not always succeed.

"Identifying active and committed members of the Muslim Brotherhood movement is a complex task, as they tend to deny any official connection," the report states. "In any case, the number of activists in organizations influenced by the movement far exceeds the number of members who have officially joined it. Many of these activists are not even aware they are operating within a framework affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, but continue to operate in organizations that were established or shaped in the spirit of their ideology — such as Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) and its branches, the Council of European Muslims (CEM, formerly the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe – FIOE) network, the Federation of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations (FEMYSO), the European Forum of Muslim Women (EFOMW), as well as a long list of additional national and international bodies."

According to the findings, this is not a collection of isolated bodies, but an organized and sophisticated network operating in Europe for years: student associations, nonprofit organizations, research institutes, civil society organizations, and even religious institutions. All fit into the concept conceived by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Brotherhood's spiritual leader in recent decades: "Wasatiyya" (Islamic centrism or moderation) – an approach portrayed as moderate, but according to the report,  its purpose is gradual infiltration into Western systems until changing the democratic order from within.

Under the cover of legitimacy and decentralization, the Islamist bodies can request state and pan-European budgets. Request – and receive. "The research by Dr. Florence Bergeaud-Blackler and Dr. Tommaso Virgili exposes an uncomfortable truth: the European taxpayer is unwittingly funding the insidious infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood movement into our institutions," MEP Weimers argues. "Through grants ostensibly presented as support for immigrant integration efforts or the fight against racism, the European Union has funneled tens of millions to networks promoting separatism and parallel societies inspired by Sharia, which directly harm our cherished democratic values."

Feeding the monster

The report does not settle for presenting theoretical models. It brings a series of harsh examples showing how organizations with deep Islamist connections have succeeded in obtaining European funding on the scale of tens of millions of euros. Take, for example, an organization with a nice name, like the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), which declares on its website that it "works to end structural racism and discrimination across Europe and bring about real change in the lives of religious and ethnic minorities."

The beautiful words cover rather ugly facts: several of the member organizations in ENAR are part of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, and for 11 years it was headed by Michael Privot, who was a declared member of the movement. Between 2007 and 2020, ENAR received at least 23 million euros from European institutions. Its effective connection to the European establishment did not end with just money. Thanks to its whitewashed appearance, ENAR was a regular participant in European forums, helped draft policy documents, and promoted initiatives in the European Parliament.

The Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations (FEMYSO), which was established in 1996 at the initiative of several bodies linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, is no less effective. You can find within it the "nobility" of the Muslim Brotherhood's global leadership. The organization's founder and first president was Ibrahim el-Zayat, a German citizen of Egyptian origin, whom German security services defined as "the spider weaving the web of Islamist organizations" and as "the Muslim Brotherhood's representative in Germany." It is hard to exaggerate the depth of his connection to Islamist ideology - he was involved in almost every major Muslim Brotherhood body in Europe and was known for his extreme antisemitic positions. In el-Zayat's case, there is no need to rely on rumors or hints: the official Ikhwanweb site explicitly defined him as a member of the Brotherhood movement, and he even lost a lawsuit against a German parliamentarian who called him "a senior in the Muslim Brotherhood."

"Bodies identified with the Muslim Brotherhood exploit the blind spots of government, and master the art of using language precisely tailored to meet requirements, to ensure funding. They run a sophisticated domino game: they leverage legitimacy received in one country to establish credibility in another country or in EU institutions. This creates a dangerous cycle of funding from multiple sources," says MEP Weimers.

Alongside him, Khawla Himmat, daughter of Ghaleb Himmat, served as deputy president of the organization, a Syrian native who became an Italian citizen. Her brother, Youssef, later served as the president of FEMYSO. Ghaleb Himmat, another central figure in the European arena of the Brotherhood and someone who admitted to serving as a financier of the movement's global network, was also identified by Ikhwanweb as part of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Another FEMYSO president was Intissar Kherigi, daughter of the head of Tunisia's Ennahda party, Rached Ghannouchi — a party clearly identified with the Muslim Brotherhood. Between 2021 and 2023, the organization was headed by Hend Taner, a member of Millî Görüş (National Vision movement), the Turkish arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.

FEMYSO is a real monster, aggregating under an Islamist umbrella 32 organizations from 22 European countries and connecting them to the Muslim Brotherhood's power centers in the Middle East. Who helped feed the monster? The European Union! Between 2007 and 2019, the organization received funding of 288,856 euros from EU institutions.

Never mind the money. As in ENAR's case, the Europeans granted legitimacy to FEMYSO, despite its clear Islamist identification. For example, in 202,2 the European Commission published a "recognition video for youth across the Union," in which FEMYSO also appeared. The video was filmed as part of "European Youth Events" in the Union's parliament. The Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations participates in these events regularly and enjoys this European whitewashing also at the level of EU member states.

If this is not serious enough, wait for the report's revelations regarding Islamic Relief Worldwide and its many branches, which received an astronomical sum of over 40 million euros from the European Union. The organization's Palestinian branch is connected to Hamas, and its other branches are no better. The report's authors briefly note what has already been revealed regarding Islamic Relief Worldwide: calls "to place Jewish corpses on mountaintops, so that no dog in Palestine will be hungry," labeling Jews as "monkeys and dogs," praise for Hamas, and suspicious financial transfers.

The organization's connections to the Muslim Brotherhood are an open secret, proven many times. Nevertheless, this record did not cause the European Commission to get its act together. Its publications still define Islamic Relief Worldwide's branches in Germany and Sweden as "approved humanitarian partners of the European Union for 2021-2027." Authorities in both countries are crying out and pointing to the Islamist connection of both to the Muslim Brotherhood, but in Brussels, they neither hear nor see.

Sunni-Shia cooperation

One of the report's interesting findings points to the connection between the European branches of the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran's tentacles. Although these two Islamist players belong to rival streams in Islam, when it comes to infiltrating Europe, they actually know how to cooperate.

The Islamic Association of Shia Communities (IGS), operating in Germany, is a tangible example of such cooperation. IGS was founded in 2009 under the leadership of Ayatollah Reza Ramezani Gilani, a member of the Assembly of Experts of the Islamic Republic, the body that elects Iran's Supreme Leader. If that is not enough, in 2018, after Ramezani was called to return to Tehran, he was replaced by Mohammad Hadi Mofatteh, a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Between 2017 and 2020 IGS received 283,000 euros from an EU internal security fund for an "anti-extremism project."

This could have been funny if it were not sad: in those very years, the association, and especially its branch in Hamburg (the Islamic Center of Hamburg), rose on the radar of German security services due to being one of the engines for spreading Islamist extremism. Despite being the center for spreading Shiism, the Islamic Center of Hamburg plays a significant role in the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, which is described in the report as "the Muslim Brotherhood's umbrella organization in Germany."

Abdul-Karim Grimm, one of the center's founders, also operated in the German Muslim League, which was among the founders of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany. His wife, Fatima Grimm, operated in both bodies, and additionally took on the important role of publishing the newspaper "Al-Islam," which became the mouthpiece of the Islamic Center of Munich, linked to Muslim Brotherhood emissaries from Egypt.

The European Union also distributed funds generously to the Islamic University of Gaziantep in Turkey. Its director is appointed by Erdoğan, a Muslim Brotherhood man Turkish-style, but the champions of academic freedom from Brussels somehow do not see this as an attack on university independence. They also do not see the admiration for Hamas being instilled in students, the calls "from the river to the sea" and words of praise for "shahid" Ismail Haniyeh published by the institution's rector. European officials included the Islamic University in the Erasmus program and granted it a quarter-million-euro grant, which was stopped only following parliamentary inquiries.

The Islamophobia racket

Another toxic body that received European funding is Forum al-Sharq, based in Istanbul, Geneva, London and Kuala Lumpur. Lecturers and speakers at events organized by the forum belong to the Muslim Brotherhood and do not hide their views. One of them, Asim Qureshi, praised an ISIS terrorist known as "Jihadi John," calling him "a beautiful young man." In case you forgot, Qureshi's object of admiration used to behead hostages in front of cameras - although Qureshi extensively explained that all the troubles of the "beautiful young man" were caused by Western Islamophobia.

This argument is not reserved for the rear guard. Every time someone in Europe becomes alarmed at the Islamist takeover, the Islamists rush to preempt the blow and label him as an Islamophobe. Such labeling is tantamount to neutralization: the unfortunate labeled person loses the right to speak, is removed from television studios and newspaper columns and is publicly ostracized. Only a few dare to warn about the quiet infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into all spheres of influence in Europe.

"The Muslim Brotherhood's exploitation of the concept of 'Islamophobia' is not intended to protect vulnerable communities," Weimers clarifies. "It is a calculated tool to silence criticism and advance their 'Wasatiyya' strategy, based on gradual Islamization. The European Union's adoption of this rhetoric has encouraged self-censorship across our entire public discourse, turning what should be open debate into a minefield of fear."

However, it turns out that the Islamists' profit from misusing accusations of Islamophobia was double. They not only silenced criticism and opposition, but succeeded in milking additional funds from the European Union, which were earmarked – you guessed it – to fight that imaginary Islamophobia. Two birds with one stone.

Many millions were allocated by EU institutions to research on Islamophobia and to combat Islamophobia. To whom did they go? The report by Dr. Florence Bergeaud-Blackler and Dr. Tommaso Virgili reveals that in many cases, the grant recipients were bodies and individuals connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.

In 2018, the European Union funded the annual Islamophobia review, written by Farid Hafez and Enes Bayrakli and published by the Turkish Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research. A quick check reveals the foundation is managed by Serhat Albayrak, the older brother of Berat Albayrak, Erdoğan's son-in-law and chairman of Turkey's giant government media corporation. The review's authors frequently participate in activities of bodies promoting the Muslim Brotherhood agenda across Europe and in the US.

The Islamic Cultural Center of Valencia also won European Union funding for the stated purpose of "stopping hate ideologies, primarily Islamophobia." The cultural center in question was established by the Muslim Brotherhood, and implemented the grants jointly with four other organizations that are members of the Islamist FEMYSO – the youth organization of the Islamic Cultural Center of Valencia, the League of Muslims of Belgium, the Young Muslims of Italy organization and the Muslim Students organization in France. European money channeled to Muslim Brotherhood projects across the continent - this is exactly how the Muslim Brotherhood network operates.

The solution: the Austria model

Bergeaud-Blackler and Virgili shine a spotlight on hundreds of such projects and lament how EU institutions refuse to act forcefully, even when the true nature of the funding recipients comes to light. Giving money to the Muslim Brotherhood is like letting the fox into your coop, says Weimers: "Grants intended to increase integration feed groups which, according to their ideology, encourage Muslims in Europe to cling to a separate and insular Islamic identity."

It seems the Muslim Brotherhood has learned how to exploit European rules of the game to their advantage and turn them against Europe.

"Correct. The current structure allows groups identified with the Muslim Brotherhood to exploit the system. Officials rely on guidelines, proper documents and an organization's ability to 'recite' the project's goals. But these bodies exploit the blind spots of government authorities and bureaucratic loopholes, and master the art of using language precisely tailored to grant requirements, to ensure funding. They also run a sophisticated domino game: they leverage legitimacy gained in one country to establish credibility in another country or with EU institutions, and from there channel it back to additional grant-distributing bodies. This creates a dangerous cycle of growing legitimacy — and funding from multiple sources."

Where do European oversight mechanisms fail?

"Our oversight mechanisms are toothless when it comes to checking deviations from the grant's purpose. If an organization declares it operates in accordance with European values – the authorities accept it as gospel truth. Denial of funding due to incompatibility with these values requires conclusive evidence, but the oversight apparatus is not designed for content examination at all. And if deviations are discovered anyway, they take care to present them as one-time errors, and any official who dares to insist encounters threats of accusations of racism or Islamophobia – a chilling effect that deters most officials from acting, unless they have exceptional courage or determination.

"Even when an organization or its managers are marked as unworthy of receiving funding, there is almost nothing preventing their associates or family members from establishing a new entity, which is not formally linked but in practice is almost completely identical. Our systems do not track such connections, and administrative rules do not allow denial of funding based on indirect connections of this type."

What do you demand be done to stop the slide into the abyss, as the Muslim Brotherhood plans?

"The time has come for the European Union to adopt a zero-tolerance approach toward this threat, starting with immediate cessation of funding to any organization connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas or figures like al-Qaradawi. Through increased transparency, stringent audits and intelligence sharing — according to Austria's successful model — we can return our institutions from those seeking to undermine them from within."

Should you also learn from Trump in this context, who simply outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood?

"President Donald Trump's courageous decision to begin the process of defining major branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan as foreign terrorist organizations and as 'global terrorists' sets a powerful precedent for confrontation with Islamist threats.

"The European Union must urgently adopt this determination. The Muslim Brotherhood must be outlawed across the continent, taxpayer funding must be severed from these networks, crippling sanctions must be imposed and our democracies must be protected from their calculated infiltration and their support for organizations like Hamas. EU institutions, member states and regional authorities must sever all contact, funding and legitimacy from these bodies. Anything less than this is a betrayal of Europe's future and our shared values."