ISIS is a vehicle for destabilizing not only the Arabic Middle East and beyond, but also Europe, where there are large Muslim communities, geopolitical analyst William Engdahl told RT.
RT:How is it even legal for an international terrorist organization like ISIS to openly rally on the streets of a European city?
William Engdahl: That is a very good question and I think the Dutch government has some answers to give to that question. What we are dealing with when we look at ISIS, and I have been in conjunction with a new book that I am just finishing, called "America’s holy wars", [about] the symbiotic relationship between US Intelligence and these various jihadists groups around the world, especially the Muslim Brotherhood. The ISIS is a creation of US Intelligence in Iraq, and now the global caliphate that they have proclaimed, the Islamic State. It is not a synthetic operation, it has been supported covertly by the US, by the Obama Administration and all indications are simply that Syrian and international Muslim Brotherhood etc. disguise themselves as this new creation called ISIS. But they are getting their marching orders, their arms, US weapons, and it’s a vehicle for destabilizing not only Arabic Middle East and beyond, but also Europe, and that is something to realize that there are large Muslim communities throughout Europe. In Germany there are at least 7 million [people] proclaiming the Muslim faith and there are jihadist organizations trying to recruit young Muslims as they are doing in Holland with those Dutch demonstrations of ISIS.
RT:Do you think the local authorities will face a public backlash for allowing such a rally to go ahead?
WE: I question the sanity of the Dutch government for allowing it in the first place. One has to think there might be a little bit of a militias' agenda, some circles, perhaps tied to NATO circles that are doing the investigation or non-investigation of the Malaysian MH17 in the eastern Ukraine. There is very bizarre behavior of the Dutch government on that question. We don’t have the answers yet but the very fact that they allow this and the demonstrators were shouting "Death to the Jews" in the streets of a European country, this is really quite a shocking message, a wake-up call [on] what’s going on here.
RT:The group says it's looking for new recruits. Why do you think it would look for them in Europe, and do you think they will succeed?
WE: I think they are succeeding. The fastest growing religious groups in Germany are jihadists or salafist Islamic organizations that are recruiting young people not even of Turkish or Arabic origins. They are recruiting young German kids who are disaffected, have no goal in life, unemployed or facing a bleak future, and they are being recruited to believe in something, to believe in “dying for Allah”, and that is pretty sick way to live in my view.
RT:How much of a danger does this pose to Europe?
WE: It’s a tinder box. Look at the Muslim population in France; look at the Muslim population in Germany. I do not have statistics on Holland, but in every European country there is a significant minority that are immigrants that have come out of the Muslim world. If you get the disaffected youth in these countries and organize them into jihad operations you can really wreak havoc as we saw in France in recent years with the riots outside Paris in the ghetto suburbs. That can cause enormous social polarization because 99,9 percent of Muslims in Germany are peaceful, they want to live their lives in private and want to be left alone and have their children grow up in peace and do better than they did. So it creates a polarization of normal German citizens against Muslim immigrants, and that is not good for anybody.
RT:Could the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict lead to more Muslims joining the ranks of extremist groups like ISIS?
WE: I think it could most certainly and I think it is leading to more recruiting because it is firing up emotions, the atrocities of the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) are committing in Gaza are plastered all over the social media, internet, YouTube, etc. It cannot be denied what has been done - women, children, baby, hospital patients are being murdered.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.