Germany must prepare for a new wave of radical Islamic extremism, warns Ahmad Mansour. The Hamas attack on October 7th is also related to this.
Berlin – Extremism researcher Ahmad Mansour estimates the danger of violent Islamism in Germany as a result of the Hamasattack on October 7th as “very high”. The attacks by the Islamist Hamas after their brutal attack on Israel a year ago and the resulting war in Gaza Strip The “emotionalization” of the political debate in this country “not only leads to anti-Israel attitudes, but also to Islamist radicalization,” warned the psychologist in an interview with the news agency AFP.
This would make it easier for “a lot of people” to be recruited for Islamist violence. “This is massively dangerous,” warned Mansour. In Germany, as a result of the Hamas attack on Israel, a wave of radicalization among Muslims is imminent, “which can be even more dangerous than the Islamist attacks in Mannheim and Solingen,” said the Arab Israeli who lives in Berlin and is the founder of the Mind Prevention initiative for the promotion of democracy and the prevention of extremism.
In May, a police officer was killed in a suspected Islamist-motivated attack in Mannheim, and in August an Islamist assassin killed three people at a city festival in Solingen. After the attack, Mansour told Markus Lanz that border controls had to be reintroduced because Islamist terrorists had a “winning mentality” and newfound motivation as a result of the attack on October 7th.
Increased risk of terrorism according to Mansour – Israel’s security as a reason of state
According to Mansour, the problem of radicalization and thus the risk of Islamist attacks will continue to accompany Germany “in the coming years”. The expert, who has been working with both refugees and people with a migration background for years, attributes this, among other things, to “the fact that politicians are not able to communicate with these population groups and explain their policies in an understandable way”.
Instead, foreign media such as the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera and Russian and Turkish propaganda channels “repeatedly manipulate their own population groups in Germany”. Mansour therefore advocates launching more “democratic offensives,” especially in online networks, in order to reach people with a migrant background.
Mansour also demands that politicians “clearly name the enemies of democracy.” Especially after the Hamas attack on Israel a year ago, politicians should not “steer clear of responsibility.” A year after the “worst pogrom of Jews since the end of the Second World War,” he expects the federal government to take a 360-degree view of extremists. “Politicians should not just talk about the fight against the right and trivialize left-wing extremists and Islamists,” demands Mansour.
They should also “look very carefully at who they work with – including which civil society actors.” “You cannot talk about historical responsibility and Israel’s security as a reason of state and then pass on funding to anti-Semites,” criticizes Mansour.
The SPD and the Greens do not see “the complexity of the issue”.
The extremism researcher also calls on politicians to approach the issues of migration and integration “realistically” and “beyond ideology”. In his prevention work with radicalized Muslims, he found that “there are actors in the parties, whether SPD or Greens, who have no interest in seeing the complexity of the issue.” “They are lobbying, sometimes for terrorists, nothing more, nothing less.”
Mansour explained that he himself has been warning against “left-wing ideologies such as post-colonialism and identity politics” since 2020. He also identified “the anti-Semitic elements” in the climate movement back then. According to his observation, “for years there has been a strategic partnership between left-wing ideologies with Islamists and anti-Semites from the Arab world.”
The unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th and the reactions to it “did not surprise him”. It was already clear to him back then: “If there is a new war between Israel and the Palestinians, these people will be on the side of the Palestinians, on the side of the extremists,” said Mansour.
Therefore, when dealing with the consequences of the Hamas attack, what is now making things more difficult is that “we were not prepared to talk about the fact that we brought people into the country who were socialized differently” and among whom there is “more anti-Semitism than in the country majority society”.
The Greens and the SPD are naive when it comes to extremism – integration processes take a long time
Mansour accuses government politicians “especially from the Greens”, but also the SPD and parts of the CDU, which was then in power under former Chancellor Angela Merkel, of “naivety” with regard to their attitude. “They courted and promoted exactly such structures. They fed these monsters.”
“You can and should give protection to people who are looking for protection,” Mansour made clear. However, the priority of government policy must be “the security of Germany’s own population”. In addition, politicians and civil society must “finally understand that the integration processes take a very long time”. “The dismantling of anti-Semitism and patriarchal structures and Islamist ideology takes time.”
Mansour expects civil society to recognize that the fight for democracy now “doesn’t just take place offline and should not just be a fight against the right.” “Islamists, anti-Semites and radical left-wing actors” are also “enemies of democracy”. “But they are not our partners – even if they are against them AfD are. They are part of the problem.” Acknowledging this would be “a big step forward in the right direction.” (sischr/afp)
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