Full Comment - Canada has become a hub of Islamist terror financing

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00:01:05.660 Over the last few months, the idea that the West had dealt with the issue of terrorism, especially

00:01:10.620 Islamist-type terrorism, well, that has definitely fallen by the wayside, not only with the Hamas 0.99

00:01:17.480 attacks against Israel on October 7th, but even more recently, not a Western country, the attack in

00:01:22.560 Moscow. The shooting of missiles from Hezbollah in Lebanon into northern Israel, the Houthis,

00:01:31.840 basically taking over the Red Sea shipping lanes. All of that showing that things are not exactly

00:01:38.160 calm on the Western Front. A couple of weeks ago, I was at an event combating anti-Semitism

00:01:45.240 when I heard a speaker make an interesting point. When it comes to terrorist financing and terrorism,

00:01:52.520 Canada is a bit of a nexus. The man who said that joins us now. His name is Aras Rafiq. He is

00:01:58.380 the CEO of Quillium. He is someone who has been on the board of Secure Canada here in this country,

00:02:06.020 but also has advised American, British, French governments and agencies on dealing with

00:02:12.120 radicalization and terrorism. He joins me now from Toronto. Thanks so much for the time,

00:02:16.920 Aras. My pleasure, and thank you for having me on your show. It's an honor to be on.

00:02:22.580 That statement about Canada being a nexus for terrorist financing, it surprised me to hear

00:02:28.740 someone say it out in public quite like that. It's something that we've discussed. We've talked about

00:02:36.940 some of the protests in this country being funded by outside sources to get people to show up,

00:02:43.240 things like that. But what did you mean by that? Is Canada a place where terrorist financing gets

00:02:50.260 laundered? Is Canada a place where terrorist financing is raised? How are we a nexus?

00:02:58.500 So there was a time, and it still probably is pretty significant, that London, because of the laws,

00:03:05.620 because of the finance laws and being the hub of the financial trade around the world at one time,

00:03:11.200 was the hub through which money laundering, funding for terrorism, funding for extremism,

00:03:17.180 has been the nexus and the hub. But over the last few years, and this is based on research that we've

00:03:24.140 carried out with an organization called ISCAP, and other research that I've seen as well,

00:03:28.620 Canada has actually become the place where money comes in from extremist organizations,

00:03:37.700 and it's laundered, and it's then used for the spread of Islamism. And I think it's very important 1.00

00:03:43.860 to just identify what I mean by Islamism. In the same way that there's a difference between social

00:03:50.980 and socialism. There is a difference between Islam and Islamism. Social is the way that we interact, 0.76

00:03:58.660 we can sit around a table, have a wonderful conversation, we can break bread. And socialism

00:04:02.720 is a distinct political ideology that happens to be left of center. Islam is a religion that's,

00:04:09.060 and I'm a Muslim myself, Islam is a religion that's practiced by just under two billion people

00:04:14.780 around the world in so many different ways, and often excommunicating people who have different

00:04:21.440 views and following it in a different way. Islamism is a distinct political ideology,

00:04:26.940 and it's the term coined by the Muslim Brotherhood. In Arabic, they call themselves Islamiyud,

00:04:32.640 to differentiate themselves from ordinary Muslims in Egypt at the time of their inception.

00:04:38.140 Islamism is a distinct political ideology, and it wants to achieve two main things,

00:04:43.460 and there is a third one which is a tactic. The first thing is that they want to actually

00:04:49.240 set up a utopian Islamist state and enforce a version of law based on Sharia, their interpretation

00:04:57.860 of Sharia, as state law across all of the citizens. The second thing then is to, it's an expansionist 0.87

00:05:04.520 political ideology, and the second thing then is to spread that around the world. And of course I

00:05:10.020 mentioned the third thing, which is a tactic, the third thing they want to do is to wipe Israel off 0.91

00:05:15.080 the map. So that's what I mean by Islamism, a term that's coined by Islamists themselves,

00:05:20.920 and it's not the same as a religion Islam.

00:05:22.640 So really, there's been a real focus on the money coming in, being laundered to fund extremist,

00:05:33.380 Islamist activities in Canada, and why is it important? Because of the easy access to the

00:05:40.020 United States, and also to fund it around the world, as well as the other way around as well.

00:05:45.440 We've heard through some great reporting by Sam Cooper, who has a small independent media outlet called

00:05:52.080 the Bureau, or that when he was with Global News, he's done great reporting on the money laundering

00:05:59.560 that's gone on in British Columbia, Vancouver in particular, dealing with Chinese money coming

00:06:05.600 in, often triads, illegal gangs, sometimes money laundering happening with the blessing of the

00:06:12.220 dictators in Beijing. In that, you know, even though it's often a government tied into it,

00:06:18.320 there is a criminal element side of it as well. And that has been massive. They've used real estate,

00:06:24.740 they've used casinos. But we haven't heard the same on this side. So are we talking about money

00:06:32.960 coming in from Iran, money coming in to fund groups like Hamas or Hezbollah? Where does the money come

00:06:41.400 from? And where does it end up? Sure. One of the biggest, by the way, the mechanisms that you've

00:06:47.520 described are not exclusive to China. In 2015, I think it was the Canadian Department for Finance

00:06:55.480 looked at vulnerabilities and looked at threats of terrorist funding coming in from a number of

00:07:02.940 organizations and institutions around the world, Hamas being one of them, Hezbollah being another one,

00:07:07.560 and identified similar mechanisms. And we can talk about that a little bit more. But the money

00:07:13.820 really, at the moment, the biggest country, and we're talking billions, we're not talking hundreds

00:07:19.760 of millions, the biggest funder of extremist Islamist activities, be they either in inverted

00:07:26.560 commas non-violent or violent themselves, is Qatar. And they have a number of mechanisms through which 0.67

00:07:32.880 the money's going out. But we did a report for ISCAP, the Institute for the Study of Global

00:07:39.160 Antisemitism and Policy. And we identified that Qatar's sovereign wealth fund has in between

00:07:48.380 $500 billion and $1 trillion of US dollars of assets through which they're spreading soft power

00:07:58.560 influence and money going around the world to extremists and terrorist censors as well.

00:08:04.620 And let's not forget that Qatar themselves, in the same way that people, your audience will know that

00:08:10.660 when thinking of China, or the Chinese government rather, people think of the Chinese Communist Party.

00:08:17.380 In the same way that we should be thinking about Qatar, in the same way where Qatar and the Muslim 0.98

00:08:25.140 Brotherhood, there is no difference. The Muslim Brotherhood, which are the current ideologues 1.00

00:08:32.460 behind groups like ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and what's coming next as well, and we really are at a moment

00:08:38.720 with the protests and everything else that's happening. Qatar is the biggest funder of Islamist 1.00

00:08:46.420 indoctrination of Islamist activities around the world, including Canada. So that's really a country 0.89

00:08:54.060 that we should be looking at very, very closely.

00:08:57.920 So even though most of us have been thinking about talking about Iran, Qatar is the bigger threat. 1.00

00:09:04.280 At this moment in time, Qatar is a bigger threat. Let's not forget, and I'll explain why that is. 1.00

00:09:09.660 I mentioned that Qatar is the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar are the same. Let's not forget Hamas, 1.00

00:09:15.880 in their own charter, basically called themselves the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood.

00:09:24.940 Let's not forget that the Muslim Brotherhood inspired groups like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Shabaab,

00:09:33.280 many of these other Islamist organizations, terrorist organizations around the world. Without the 0.97

00:09:38.900 ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, there would be no Islamist terrorist activity.

00:09:44.480 And Qatar is a country that's been quietly getting on with what they want to do, with what they need

00:09:51.440 to do in terms of spreading their indoctrination around the world through money. Qatar also hosted,

00:09:57.320 and some of it not so quiet, Qatar funded Hamas for many, many years. Qatar hosted the Taliban.

00:10:05.500 Let's not forget that the senior leaders of Hamas have been in Doha, in Qatar, for many,

00:10:10.920 many years. Qatar has been quietly getting on, and sometimes I mention not so quietly,

00:10:16.260 getting on with what they want to do for years. We still need to look at Iran for different reasons, 0.72

00:10:22.440 but let's not forget that Qatar shares the same ideology that Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab,

00:10:31.820 and Hamas share.

00:10:33.780 So, let me ask you then. You're describing this country as a small peninsula in the Middle East,

00:10:43.180 tiny compared to some of its neighboring countries in terms of geography, but obviously a lot of money.

00:10:49.120 We hear about leadership in places like Saudi Arabia trying to move away from anything that would promote

00:10:58.860 the Muslim Brotherhood ideology. Some have actually said they want a new form of Islam

00:11:05.860 because they worry about what is going on in terms of radicalization, and they see it as a threat to

00:11:14.180 their own hold on power. If that is true, and correct me if I'm wrong or if you have a different

00:11:21.000 interpretation of what's happening in UAE or Saudi, if that's true, why would Qatar be going in the

00:11:28.460 opposite direction?

00:11:30.120 So, I went to Saudi Arabia two years ago after 27 years, and I've been going quite a lot over the last

00:11:39.100 couple of years. And I went after 27 years because it probably wasn't safe for me to go

00:11:46.620 prior to two years ago. And the reason for that was that I've been in this area of work now for

00:11:54.600 20 years coming up too. And in the past, I have been extremely critical of countries like Saudi Arabia

00:12:02.480 for growing and funding Islamism, the Muslim Brotherhood, and all these entities around the

00:12:10.300 world for decades. But it was safe for me to go two years ago. And what I've seen now really ties in

00:12:20.720 with what you've explained. I would even go to say that the Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, when it comes to

00:12:27.120 Islamist extremism and Islamist terrorism, and I'm not talking about other things, I'm specifically 0.59

00:12:32.460 talking about extremism and terrorism, is more moderate than parts of London in the United

00:12:39.300 Kingdom, where I come from.

00:12:41.440 Wow.

00:12:41.860 That's because the, and that's a statement that I, and I've been there for three times,

00:12:46.780 three, sorry, I've been there a number of times over the last two years. Saudi Arabia, parts of

00:12:52.040 Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, Jeddah, is less extremist when it comes to Islamism than parts of London in the

00:12:58.720 United Kingdom. And I would say parts of Toronto as well, because, again, in the last year, this is

00:13:04.060 my third visit to Toronto. So there are various things and very, very things I've seen and sort

00:13:10.460 of investigated here also. The reason for that is that, look, in 2015, MBS, Mohammed bin Salman,

00:13:18.340 the Crown Prince, really has been a force of reform and moderation. They've got a long way to go yet,

00:13:23.760 but they've really, really got a lot of reforms in place very, very quickly. And I wanted to see it

00:13:31.360 for myself, and I have. And it's actually, there are issues still, but it's actually working.

00:13:36.420 They've made it illegal in Saudi Arabia for anybody to be a member of any entity,

00:13:44.180 but for the Muslim Brotherhood and any entity that's inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood,

00:13:48.340 and that includes Hamas, they're rounding people up and locking them up for terrorism. Now, in a liberal

00:13:54.020 secular democracy, I'm not saying that's what we should be doing, but that's what they're doing. 0.99

00:13:59.040 So it is actually illegal to support the Muslim Brotherhood in Saudi Arabia. Secondly, you've got

00:14:06.580 the United Arab Emirates, who, with Bahrain and Morocco, led the way in signing the Abraham Accord

00:14:14.160 and normalising relationships with Israel and sort of trading and getting on with really paving the

00:14:23.960 way for peace in the Middle East. And again, in the UA, in the majority of the UA, because there are

00:14:30.100 some parts of the UA, because it's different emirates that are still struggling with this notion,

00:14:35.260 but certainly in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, it is illegal to be a supporter or a member of groups such as the

00:14:42.560 Muslim Brotherhood and its derivatives. These countries originally were, and I've said this 1.00

00:14:49.160 many times in the past, through finance, through support, through creating entities, were a big,

00:14:56.740 big part of the problem. Now, I believe they have to be part of the solution. And the second part of

00:15:00.760 your question about Qatar. So in 2015, when Mohammed bin Salman really started coming into his own,

00:15:07.780 Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and other Gulf countries started to actually display signs of

00:15:18.800 antagonism towards Qatar because of the way that the Muslim Brotherhood is integrated into society 0.97

00:15:25.500 there. Late Yusuf Qaradawi, who was banned from entry into the United Kingdom, into other parts of the

00:15:32.920 world for his anti-Semitic and pro-jihadist suicide bombing views, lived there and died there. They 0.64

00:15:41.160 gave refuge to him. And in fact, the current leader of Qatar referred to him as, in inverted commas,

00:15:46.980 my sheikh, my teacher. Now, Qatar in 2015 was identified by these local Arab countries. In 2017,

00:15:56.100 there was a blockade and trying to force Qatar to get rid of its affiliations with Muslim Brotherhood

00:16:06.980 and Islamist linked entities. The blockade didn't work. What did Qatar do? Qatar actually turned to 0.68

00:16:13.580 Iran, turned to Turkey, turned to other countries. And then now we have a situation where the blockade

00:16:19.320 didn't work. And now, um, uh, cause I tried to do certain things and did, uh, you know, it just didn't

00:16:25.320 work. So Qatar is now in inverted commas friends again with these countries, but going its own path

00:16:31.720 and a small country, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, um, uh, per capita is using this soft

00:16:42.480 power game, if you like. And I'm, and I say game in inverted commas, cause it's very, very serious.

00:16:48.460 It's, it's more serious than just a game to spread its influence around the world because it wants to

00:16:56.880 be taken as a serious player in what's coming, what's happening in the Middle East and around the world.

00:17:02.680 And actually it's something that Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the rest of

00:17:11.120 the world really, really needs to work us on. It should be worried.

00:17:15.620 Well, they're currently part of the team of small team of nations that's trying to negotiate a

00:17:21.760 ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Um, that gives them a certain level of stature that they 0.88

00:17:28.600 didn't have before, before it was, you know, Egypt, of course, all long part of any negotiations

00:17:35.020 involving Israel and its neighbors. But now, now to have Qatar in there, it's, it raises 0.94

00:17:40.940 them up.

00:17:41.940 Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, I remember after the terrorist attacks on October the

00:17:47.500 7th, uh, that Hamas instigated, um, um, in Israel. Um, I remember having a conversation

00:17:54.580 with some very serious, um, um, uh, people who investigate, um, these activities and keep,

00:18:02.360 uh, as safe around the world. And, and, uh, I remember saying at the time, Qatar will use,

00:18:09.140 uh, this is an opportunity to try and give themselves a more of a status. And they'll

00:18:17.620 say, we are the people that will negotiate the deals. We are the people that are able

00:18:22.440 to have the backdoor, um, uh, discussions with groups like, uh, Hamas. We are the people

00:18:28.880 that were able to host the Taliban for, um, all through the, uh, the time when NATO was 0.63

00:18:34.880 in, was in Afghanistan looking for Al-Qaeda, et cetera. Uh, we are the people that are able

00:18:40.260 to, um, negotiate with the people that you, that you don't like or, you know, the rest

00:18:47.320 of the world should be afraid of. And they've played this game very, very well. What I'd

00:18:51.940 rather see them do is to either, uh, hand over the leaders of Hamas to, uh, the authorities

00:18:59.740 or whoever it is, whether some people say Israel, but I'm saying more of, you know, the, the

00:19:04.420 alliance, uh, uh, um, if it's not appropriate for them to hand them over to Israel because

00:19:10.160 they may be worried about, um, uh, what their own population may do. Maybe there could be a

00:19:15.620 force, an alliance of Western countries, uh, that could actually take these leaders and

00:19:20.860 actually start negotiating directly. Why do we need Qatar to negotiate? The second thing

00:19:25.580 I'd want them to do is expel all Islamist linked entities and organizers, sorry, organizations 1.00

00:19:33.220 that they're hosting and giving safe haven to either, either. And if they haven't committed

00:19:38.260 a crime, if they committed a crime, hand them over for arrest. But if they haven't committed

00:19:42.080 a crime, expel them, you can't live, make a big statement. You cannot live in our country.

00:19:47.460 But of course they won't do that because by doing that, they'd actually be going against

00:19:52.420 the very ideology that they actually believe in themselves all throughout their own, uh,

00:19:59.020 civil society to the institutions that govern the country.

00:20:03.260 What you just described of them using this to, uh, uh, their advantage to try and gain stature.

00:20:11.400 That sounds like the arsonist showing up to put out the fire and declaring themselves a

00:20:15.960 hero. I totally agree. I totally agree. Um, yeah, you know, I, it's, it's, I look, I'm

00:20:22.800 not saying that they are responsible for, uh, in this instance, the attack, uh, on October

00:20:27.700 the 7th. I'm not, I'm not saying that I think that would be wrong to say that, but what they

00:20:31.480 have done is provided to use your analogy, given the arsonist, the material that the arsonist

00:20:37.640 can use to actually go and, uh, start a fire. That's the, that's the subtle difference between

00:20:45.040 the arsonist and the person that says here, have the, have the material, have the, the

00:20:49.980 kerosene, the petrol, or even the matches or the lighter or whatever it is. They've created

00:20:55.960 this safe haven in the region for Islamist entities to, to, to, to, to operate. One of the 0.99

00:21:02.640 things, Brian, you know, people often talk about Islamist terrorism and they say, oh,

00:21:07.760 let's, they'll talk about Al-Qaeda in the past and say Al-Qaeda terrorism and Al-Qaeda

00:21:12.560 extremism. And they'll talk about ISIS. Um, um, and now the, what comes next? And, and that's,

00:21:19.100 I think is very important to touch on as well. Let's not forget that Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas,

00:21:25.760 all of these groups did not cause extremism. Extremism, Islamist extremism influenced and

00:21:35.200 caused and allowed these organizations to exist. It's the Islamist extremism that inspired 1.00

00:21:40.980 these organizations, not the other way around. And Qatar has been hosting groups like the Taliban

00:21:45.620 and Hamas there for a long time. Well, the Hamas leadership, while complaining about the, 0.52

00:21:51.220 the plate of civilians in Rafa, um, are living in five-star accommodations in Qatar right now.

00:21:57.300 Um, the best hotels I'm told. Mm. Billionaires. I mean, Hamas has billionaires, more, probably 0.97

00:22:05.340 more billionaires than, uh, um, per capita, uh, than any other organization institution in the

00:22:14.400 world. Every single, there's a, there's a concept. And we're talking about financing and

00:22:20.880 terrorism again. And we talked about, I've mentioned a little bit about the money coming

00:22:24.500 into Canada, um, the money laundering it. And we, I will expand on that, but let's not also forget

00:22:30.440 the money going the other way as well. There, there, there are people, whenever something happens

00:22:36.460 in the region, and I get it as a Muslim myself, as a human myself, human being myself, I get it.

00:22:44.380 And when people actually want to give money to, to, to, to try and alleviate suffering around the

00:22:51.500 world, and there are innocent people in Gaza right now, who as a result of what Hamas did, and, and now,

00:22:57.780 uh, Israel's retaliation, um, that are suffering. When money has been going for Gaza, there has been a

00:23:07.760 clear system of people, uh, taking their cut, uh, including Hamas. Um, and so for every $1 that may

00:23:17.860 go over to, for aid, uh, to organizations and charities and institutions, uh, to support the, uh,

00:23:26.060 the plight of Palestinians, some of that money goes to directly to groups like Hamas and Palestinian

00:23:34.300 Islamic jihad. So the money's been going the other way around as well. And these guys have been,

00:23:38.420 whether that's from individuals and whether that's from agencies and, you know, we've seen some of the

00:23:42.280 stuff with UNRWA recently. Um, and the fact that there have been many members of staff in UNRWA who

00:23:47.120 actually belong to organizations like Hamas and operational for them and have been operational for

00:23:51.360 them. There's been a big cut of money. There is a big cut of money, a big slice that goes for

00:23:58.740 assistance to, for Palestinians in the region that goes to these guys. And these guys are,

00:24:04.300 not just, uh, some of the, some of these guys has been estimated, um, in a four billion,

00:24:10.400 are worth $4 billion, $5 billion. That's, that's, that's extremely hypocritical for them to sit in

00:24:17.320 their five-star hotels and, and, and, and lament the suffering of people that are dying in Palestine

00:24:22.880 and Gaza, uh, whilst they're enjoying their, you know, their, their, their steaks and, uh, living a

00:24:31.240 life of luxury, you know, it's, uh, it's extremely hypocritical, but that's, that's how it works.

00:24:36.220 We need to get, take a quick break, but, uh, when we come back, Harris, I'd like to talk to you more

00:24:41.340 about this money laundering, the money coming in, the money coming out of Canada. Is it paying for

00:24:46.060 the protests, which are global and were instantaneously well-organized? We'll talk about

00:24:51.840 all of that when we come back. So if Canada is a nexus for terrorist financing, where does it come

00:24:58.680 from? Where does it go to? That, I guess, becomes the main question. Uh, Harris, we're talking about

00:25:06.040 money coming in and you mentioned Hamas, Hezbollah, some of the groups. Is Qatar laundering money here

00:25:11.880 to take away the, the, the scent of where it comes from? Is Iran laundering money here to,

00:25:18.040 to make it seem legitimate when it goes out to different organizations? Yeah. But when we,

00:25:23.360 when we look at the money laundering, uh, process and we look at, uh, specifically how money is

00:25:29.200 laundered to, um, to clean it from, from countries, uh, whether it's Qatar, Iran, China, whoever,

00:25:35.900 whoever it is, there's really four, four key parts of the process. The first part is obviously the

00:25:42.560 source. And that's the source that's coming from countries such as, as, um, uh, Qatar, Iran,

00:25:48.300 uh, China, et cetera, um, and others as well. And then we've got the second part of the process,

00:25:54.780 which is the placement. And that's actually putting the money into some sort of financial system.

00:26:01.340 And Qatar, for example, is, is using, um, I guess, three or four main, uh, entities for this. Uh,

00:26:10.960 they have the sovereign wealth fund. So, uh, which is the QI investment, Qatar investment,

00:26:16.840 um, authority. Uh, and then they have, uh, the, um, uh, the, the, the actual, um, uh, another source,

00:26:27.800 which is Qatar foundation, which is the education. Uh, then they have the humanitarian, which is,

00:26:33.880 uh, Qatar charity. And then there's the development arm, which is the Qatar fund.

00:26:40.960 And that's where the placement part of this, of this, of this, uh, strategy is going. Uh,

00:26:46.640 then what we're finding is that, um, the third part, which is layering, that's the transferring

00:26:52.920 to money as of, of the money. Once it's in the financial system, transferring in to, to conceal

00:26:58.700 the origins of the funds. And there are groups and organizations in Canada itself, because Canada

00:27:05.340 has, Canada is the second, I think, I believe the second largest country in the world.

00:27:10.520 I think it's the 10th, uh, current, I think as of last year, I think it was the 10th largest

00:27:16.240 economy in the world, if not mistaken. Canada has its federal law, but it also has 13 provinces

00:27:24.600 slash territories, which will operate a lot of the, um, uh, the way that they look at financial

00:27:31.660 crime in different ways. It's much, the United Kingdom, London, the whole of the United Kingdom,

00:27:37.420 for example, which has been the nexus, um, has one law throughout England, Scotland,

00:27:43.420 Wales, and the United Kingdom, uh, Northern Ireland, when it, when it comes to financial

00:27:47.620 crime and, um, financial issues. Canada has 13 provinces that differ slightly.

00:27:54.240 Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, if you're using a, a, a bank, then that is a federal institution,

00:28:02.140 but there are, uh, for example, credit unions. Yeah. Or case populares, as they're called in

00:28:09.020 Quebec, which are provincially regulated. And while they would fall under some federal law

00:28:16.240 for reporting, there are, there's provincial laws that are mainly covering them.

00:28:21.380 Exactly. Exactly. So it's, it's, it's actually easier for the placement. And then the next phase,

00:28:29.020 which is the layering, transferring the money to conceal the origins of the funds. And there

00:28:34.100 are charities, uh, there are, um, um, organizations which say and claim they working for, they work

00:28:41.960 on the development of Islam. There could be organizations which are, uh, specifically and

00:28:46.660 primarily set up for education. Uh, there could be cas, casinos. I, you mentioned, see, it seems at

00:28:53.100 odds, you know, for Islamist entities to actually layer money in casinos, but it actually is happening.

00:28:59.580 Then you've got a whole bunch of other organizations and institutions which fall into the wider civil

00:29:05.860 society, uh, bracket. And then what happens is that that money will then go into the United States.

00:29:13.860 That money will go into London. That money will go into higher education and billion, and, and, and

00:29:19.420 this gap right now, uh, is actually, I mean, this gap looked at, um, I think it's got found in the

00:29:25.960 United States. Um, there were, uh, there were over four, four and a half billion dollars of

00:29:33.860 unreg, unreported, um, uh, money that had gone to universities in the United States.

00:29:40.420 There was a federal investigation, uh, that was layered out around, uh, across,

00:29:45.760 that was spread to, and this is primarily from, uh, Muslim brotherhood inspired entities,

00:29:50.400 Casa being the main player. Uh, that, that, that investigation was expanded. And I think the

00:29:56.100 Department of Education, um, got that figure up to about 18 billion or 19 billion if memory serves

00:30:01.360 me right. Uh, and then when President Biden, uh, became President Biden, uh, that investigation

00:30:07.560 was stopped. But this gap has continued and found billions and billions of undocumented,

00:30:14.120 unreported money that's gone into universities in the United States. Uh, and this is interesting

00:30:19.000 because we're going to talk about protests in a minute and, and, and the response to, um,

00:30:23.560 October the 7th from organizations, um, um, that claim to be student-led. Um, well, actually,

00:30:30.620 they are student-led, um, but billions of dollars have also come into Canada. Uh, ISCAP is actually,

00:30:38.820 and I don't want to mention the amounts or the numbers because ISCAP is, and I'm part of the team,

00:30:42.880 ISCAP is actually looking at that at this very moment, uh, at this moment, specifically with higher

00:30:47.380 education. Uh, billions of dollars has come into Canada, into universities as well. And that money then

00:30:56.300 becomes integrated for use for things that may seem innocuous, such as higher education, activities of

00:31:04.380 students, relief work, charity work, um, building, uh, mosques, building other places, community

00:31:11.580 centers, et cetera. Uh, and again, side note, mosques aren't necessarily the place. And there are good

00:31:19.200 mosques and there are mosques that are not Islamist as there are mosques that are Islamist. Radicalization 0.77

00:31:25.280 does not, Islamist terrorism and extremism is not happening in the mosques anymore. They don't need 0.93

00:31:32.200 to, it's happening online, uh, and it's happening in other places, but money is being filtered and sent

00:31:39.700 through these organizations, institutions, so that it's integrated into either Canada or spread around

00:31:45.760 the world. There's one charity who I won't mention. Money's coming in, the name I won't mention at this

00:31:50.260 stage. Money's coming in from Qatar and we're talking hundreds of millions. We're not talking,

00:31:55.980 uh, small amounts. It's coming into Canada. It's as part of this process mechanism, the source,

00:32:02.540 the placement, the layering is going to a charity. And that charity is spending that money here in

00:32:08.180 Canada, but also sending tens of millions of dollars to the UK and tens of millions of dollars

00:32:15.020 to actually a bit more than that, uh, uh, nearly hundreds of millions of dollars to the United

00:32:18.780 States and other places around the world as well. Yeah. I do want to relate this partly to the

00:32:27.320 protests because the protests that are often described as pro-Palestinian, and I describe them

00:32:35.180 as pro-Hamas because I've been to too many of them to believe otherwise at this point, right? Never heard 0.98

00:32:41.080 one call for a release of hostages, one call for Hamas to agree to a ceasefire. Um, you know,

00:32:48.600 all, all the calls and chants are, are aimed at, at Israel. Um, the little Satan, as the Iranians 1.00

00:32:55.060 would say. And we, myself and my colleagues have been looking and trying to find the source of these

00:33:03.540 funds. Uh, we believe Qatar and Iran are behind it, but have not seen the proof yet. Yeah. 0.86

00:33:10.440 And the reason that I ask is the, these are not grassroots protest movements that sprung up in

00:33:16.920 Toronto, in Montreal, in London, in Washington, DC, in, you know, cities around the Western world.

00:33:27.040 They, some of them were organized with slick graphics, calling out people to protest on October

00:33:33.600 7th. On October 7th, there were immediate social media campaigns come to this protest in Montreal.

00:33:40.440 Tomorrow, October 8th. In Toronto, it was October 9th and in so on and so forth. And you see this

00:33:47.560 around the world and they are far too organized for there not to be money behind it.

00:33:55.380 No, absolutely. You know, I, I remember, um, when Osama bin Laden was, was, was killed. Um,

00:34:07.920 I remember, um, having a meeting with one of my senior members with a very, very senior civil servant

00:34:13.700 bureaucrat. And he turned around to us and said, Hey, job done. We've won. The war is won. We've defeated

00:34:21.920 Islamist terrorism. And myself and my, my colleagues, we just looked at each other and we tried to explain

00:34:29.060 to him how it wasn't. And we, we actually did a paper called, it's the ideology, stupid. 0.99

00:34:34.840 When I, we have, that was a public paper. We published it, but we were waiting for the next 0.95

00:34:41.200 incarnate. What's coming next? You know, there were pockets of Al-Shabaab. Okay. That was happening 0.96

00:34:46.320 primarily in Africa, Boko Haram. Uh, but what's the next global Islamist terrorist entity?

00:34:54.900 Of course, ISIS declared the Islamic state and that became the next global, um, um, um, 0.98

00:35:03.300 entity that is inspiring Islamist terrorism. When Baghdadi was killed, similar exercise again, 0.88

00:35:11.260 and myself and a lot of colleagues and some very, very serious people around the world that we've

00:35:17.500 been advising and working with have been waiting for what comes next. We're at that

00:35:24.720 moment that what comes next. Initially, my working, my working hypothesis was, um, that we called it

00:35:33.960 Hamas international in inverted commas. And there are elements of that, what I call, um, Islamism beyond 0.97

00:35:41.560 Islamist. What, and I will, and I will touch on the money part, but I think it's very important

00:35:47.600 because this will explain the phenomenon a little bit that you mentioned, how they were ready on October,

00:35:54.580 the 7th, October the 8th. Of course there was intelligence, there was chatter, there were people

00:35:58.760 that knew what was going on. Of course, all of that was, was the case, but what Hamas, and, and we can 0.92

00:36:06.240 talk about, I asked myself the question on October the 7th, why now, why did Hamas do this now? 0.66

00:36:13.640 And what are they hoping to achieve? Well, the why now, I genuinely believe, this is my analysis, I genuinely

00:36:20.620 believe the why now was to try and derail the potential probable normalization process that could have

00:36:29.440 happened between other countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and Israel. What have they

00:36:37.120 achieved? And what were they hoping to achieve? I think that they were hoping that the Iranian proxies 1.00

00:36:41.860 would jump in and support them. So they're hoping as Hezbollah would attack from the north and the 0.99

00:36:47.740 Houthis, well, the Houthis have done pockets of, of, uh, of assistance in inverted commas, but that never

00:36:53.480 really materialized. That didn't happen in the way that I believe that they expected it and possibly were

00:36:59.700 even promised that it would happen. But the other elements of what they've achieved, they've achieved

00:37:05.760 something akin to what Adolf Hitler did in the 1930s. After World War One and the depression in,

00:37:15.440 in Germany and, uh, and the Republic that in Germany, that was probably one of the most liberal

00:37:19.960 republics in Europe, that Europe has ever seen. Germany was suffering and Germany was suffering in,

00:37:27.280 in a way that there was economic suffering, people weren't happy, et cetera, et cetera. But Hitler 0.78

00:37:32.540 was able to take, was, was, was able to unite a significant percentage. And by the way,

00:37:39.040 one only needs 25%, a study showed that needs 25, support from 25% of a population to actually

00:37:46.980 mobilize the population into extremist, um, uh, actions. But he was able to take the far left

00:37:53.620 policies from Mussolini. He was able to take the populist policies from the far right of Germany

00:38:01.980 and was able to unite, uh, uh, a population that was, was, had a grievance, um, against a common

00:38:11.260 enemy. And it happened to be initially the Jews. Let's not forget, as, uh, Elie Wiesel said,

00:38:16.900 the late Elie Wiesel said, what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. And of course,

00:38:22.100 we, we know that in Germany at the time, Hitler started with the Jews and we had the show and 0.85

00:38:26.220 the Holocaust, but then expanded to, uh, Poland and other countries. And we had World War II. 0.70

00:38:33.040 What Hamas has been able to do, and this is what I've been calling Hamas International, 0.96

00:38:36.920 uh, uh, right now, is to get people from the left, people from the regressive left, get people

00:38:46.980 from the far right, not the populist, but the populist, but the actual far right. And Islamists, 0.85

00:38:53.640 I'm sorry, Muslims, not just Islamists now, um, unite them with a common cause, with a common enemy, 0.99

00:39:01.540 with anti-Semitism being the fuel of the masses that's driving them. And what we're worried about

00:39:07.800 now in the United Kingdom and around the world is that we're at that what next moment, because we're

00:39:16.760 seeing a significant population of people who are in the protest that are angry, that actually,

00:39:24.640 actually, one of the interesting things in the United Kingdom, the official figures that I've seen,

00:39:30.620 you know, 60% plus of the people that are attending the protest aren't actually even Muslim.

00:39:36.380 Um, no, and I would say the same here in Toronto.

00:39:40.960 Yeah, and this is, this is the phenomenon, the unification of the, the way that this brand

00:39:47.440 Hamas International has managed to unify the far left, the far right, and Muslims, who for 1400 years

00:39:54.600 ago, by the way, the different types of Muslims, uh, have been, uh, cursing each other for not being 0.92

00:39:59.440 proper Muslims. And it's not just Sunni Shia, even within Sunni, there's Wahhabi, there's Salafi,

00:40:03.580 there's, uh, there's, uh, Muslim Brotherhood, there's Jamaat-Islami, there's the Sufis,

00:40:08.540 the Bareluis, many others, who for 1400 years have said, ah, you're not proper Muslims,

00:40:13.500 brought them all together in very, very slick campaigns. You know, in the United Kingdom,

00:40:19.980 Nick Griffin is the far right. He's the former leader of the British National Party,

00:40:23.380 of the National Front, uh, the, the leader of the, the Knights of the Templar Patriots,

00:40:28.340 working with Muslim Islamist organizations, who are also working with the far left. That's the

00:40:35.880 phenomenon that's happening. And the what comes next, because Al-Qaeda and ISIS did not radicalize

00:40:43.240 anybody. What they did, they took people that were radicalized in civil society through, through,

00:40:50.880 through, through anger, through frustration, through not belonging to, not having an identity,

00:40:55.760 to having charismatic recruiters, giving them, um, solutions to their problems, for grievances,

00:41:00.980 some often manufactured. Al-Qaeda, ISIS took people that were radicalized to a non-violent space

00:41:09.760 and then tipped some of them over the edge. The volume of the people and the way that this triple

00:41:15.300 threat has actually come together, the regressive left, the far right, and Islamist theocracies, 0.62

00:41:19.740 the way that it's come together is a massive, massive, huge boost to the what comes next,

00:41:29.140 which won't be centralized, it'll be decentralized. Canada will, will, and mark my words, Canada will

00:41:36.500 have its violent problem of, um, violence which is inspired by Islamism, the terrorism. It's, it's, 1.00

00:41:43.780 just as every other country will, because of what's happened. But it will be decentralized,

00:41:48.320 but, and so it won't be command and control like ISIS was, um, um, uh, and Al-Qaeda has been,

00:41:56.260 but it will be all inspired against a common enemy, initially, the Jews in Israel, but more so the

00:42:03.000 West. That has taken some serious funding. That funding has come from a number of mechanisms through

00:42:10.180 the process that I mentioned. Some of that money has been coming from the left itself, from, uh, from the

00:42:15.900 far left, um, um, trade unions and various people. Some of that money has been coming from elements of,

00:42:21.620 of the right, shall we say, the far right, uh, the actual fascist far right, but a lot of money has been

00:42:26.820 coming in from proxies who have been part of the process I mentioned from the Middle East. Qatar and Iran

00:42:33.460 have been, or rather, should we say, people from Qatar and Iran have been playing a leading role in that.

00:42:41.000 Unreal. Uh, this conversation could go on for much longer for us, and I, I wish we could continue,

00:42:48.880 but we've got to end it there. Um, uh, encourage people to, to check out your work and continue to,

00:42:55.240 uh, to support you in the fight.

00:42:57.120 If I may say, in, in, in the United, in Canada, uh, Secure Canada is an organization that I recently

00:43:04.800 joined the board of. And by the way, I don't join, um, I get invited to join the board of

00:43:10.460 companies around the world regularly. Um, and I turn most of them down because I don't have the

00:43:16.360 time. Uh, but Secure Canada is an organization that I have decided to join because of the people

00:43:21.120 involved and because of the opportunity that we have in Canada, because Canada is only, Canada is

00:43:26.540 behind us in the UK. We made mistakes. We did some things very good, very well. Um, and also support,

00:43:32.580 uh, Secure Canada and also the work of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy,

00:43:37.180 who've been looking primarily, um, doing a lot of work on sort of decodifying how antisemitism works,

00:43:43.280 but recently looking at Qatar's financing of higher education. These are two organizations

00:43:49.280 that I would recommend that people do look at it. All right. Will do. Thank you very much for your

00:43:55.400 time. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Full Comment is a post-media podcast. My name's

00:44:00.660 Brian Lilley, your host. This episode was produced by Andre Pru with theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:44:05.460 Kevin Libin is the executive producer. You can subscribe to the Full Comment podcast on

00:44:10.340 Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, the new YouTube podcast. Listen through your Alexa-enabled

00:44:16.740 devices any way that you can. You can also help us out. Leave us a rating, leave us a review,

00:44:21.880 tell your friends about us, share it on social media as well. Thanks for listening. Until next time,

00:44:27.200 I'm Brian Lilley.

Full Comment - April 08, 2024

Canada has become a hub of Islamist terror financing

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