The Muslim Brotherhood Project

The Muslim Brotherhood "Project"
By Patrick Poole
FrontPageMagazine

One might be led to think that if international law enforcement authorities and Western intelligence agencies had discovered a twenty-year old document revealing a top-secret plan developed by the oldest Islamist organization with one of the most extensive terror networks in the world to launch a program of "cultural invasion" and eventual conquest of the West that virtually mirrors the tactics used by Islamists for more than two decades, that such news would scream from headlines published on the front pages and above the fold of the New York Times, Washington Post, London Times, Le Monde, Bild, and La Repubblica. If that's what you might think, you would be wrong.

In fact, such a document was recovered in a raid by Swiss authorities in November 2001, two months after the horror of 9/11. Since that time information about this document, known in counterterrorism circles as "The Project," and discussion regarding its content has been limited to the top-secret world of Western intelligence communities. Only through the work of an intrepid Swiss journalist, Sylvain Besson of Le Temps, and his book published in October 2005 in France, La conquête de l'Occident: Le projet secret des Islamistes (The Conquest of the West: The Islamists' Secret Project), has information regarding The Project finally been made public. One Western official cited by Besson has described The Project as "a totalitarian ideology of infiltration which represents, in the end, the greatest danger for European societies."

Now FrontPage readers will be the first to be able to read the complete English translation of The Project.

What Western intelligence authorities know about The Project begins with the raid of a luxurious villa in Campione, Switzerland on November 7, 2001. The target of the raid was Youssef Nada, director of the Al-Taqwa Bank of Lugano, who has had active association with the Muslim Brotherhood for more than 50 years and who admitted to being one of the organization's international leaders. The Muslim Brotherhood, regarded as the oldest and one of the most important Islamist movements in the world, was founded by Hasan al-Banna in 1928 and dedicated to the credo, "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

The raid was conducted by Swiss law enforcement at the request of the White House in the initial crackdown on terrorist finances in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. US and Swiss investigators had been looking at Al-Taqwa's involvement in money laundering and funding a wide range of Islamic terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda, HAMAS (the Palestinian affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood), the Algerian GIA, and the Tunisian Ennahdah.

Included in the documents seized during the raid of Nada's Swiss villa was a 14-page plan written in Arabic and dated December 1, 1982, which outlines a 12-point strategy to "establish an Islamic government on earth" — identified as The Project. According to testimony given to Swiss authorities by Nada, the unsigned document was prepared by "Islamic researchers" associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

What makes The Project so different from the standard "Death of America! Death to Israel!" and "Establish the global caliphate!" Islamist rhetoric is that it represents a flexible, multi-phased, long-term approach to the "cultural invasion" of the West. Calling for the utilization of various tactics, ranging from immigration, infiltration, surveillance, propaganda, protest, deception, political legitimacy and terrorism, The Project has served for more than two decades as the Muslim Brotherhood "master plan." As can be seen in a number of examples throughout Europe — including the political recognition of parallel Islamist government organizations in Sweden, the recent "cartoon" jihad in Denmark, the Parisian car-burning intifada last November, and the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London — the plan outlined in The Project has been overwhelmingly successful.

Rather than focusing on terrorism as the sole method of group action, as is the case with Al-Qaeda, in perfect postmodern fashion the use of terror falls into a multiplicity of options available to progressively infiltrate, confront, and eventually establish Islamic domination over the West. The following tactics and techniques are among the many recommendations made in The Project:

Networking and coordinating actions between likeminded Islamist organizations;


Avoiding open alliances with known terrorist organizations and individuals to maintain the appearance of "moderation";


Infiltrating and taking over existing Muslim organizations to realign them towards the Muslim Brotherhood's collective goals;


Using deception to mask the intended goals of Islamist actions, as long as it doesn't conflict with shari'a law;


Avoiding social conflicts with Westerners locally, nationally or globally, that might damage the long-term ability to expand the Islamist powerbase in the West or provoke a lash back against Muslims;


Establishing financial networks to fund the work of conversion of the West, including the support of full-time administrators and workers;


Conducting surveillance, obtaining data, and establishing collection and data storage capabilities;


Putting into place a watchdog system for monitoring Western media to warn Muslims of "international plots fomented against them";


Cultivating an Islamist intellectual community, including the establishment of think-tanks and advocacy groups, and publishing "academic" studies, to legitimize Islamist positions and to chronicle the history of Islamist movements;


Developing a comprehensive 100-year plan to advance Islamist ideology throughout the world;


Balancing international objectives with local flexibility;


Building extensive social networks of schools, hospitals and charitable organizations dedicated to Islamist ideals so that contact with the movement for Muslims in the West is constant;


Involving ideologically committed Muslims in democratically-elected institutions on all levels in the West, including government, NGOs, private organizations and labor unions;


Instrumentally using existing Western institutions until they can be converted and put into service of Islam;


Drafting Islamic constitutions, laws and policies for eventual implementation;


Avoiding conflict within the Islamist movements on all levels, including the development of processes for conflict resolution;


Instituting alliances with Western "progressive" organizations that share similar goals;


Creating autonomous "security forces" to protect Muslims in the West;


Inflaming violence and keeping Muslims living in the West "in a jihad frame of mind";


Supporting jihad movements across the Muslim world through preaching, propaganda, personnel, funding, and technical and operational support;


Making the Palestinian cause a global wedge issue for Muslims;


Adopting the total liberation of Palestine from Israel and the creation of an Islamic state as a keystone in the plan for global Islamic domination;


Instigating a constant campaign to incite hatred by Muslims against Jews and rejecting any discussions of conciliation or coexistence with them;


Actively creating jihad terror cells within Palestine;


Linking the terrorist activities in Palestine with the global terror movement;


Collecting sufficient funds to indefinitely perpetuate and support jihad around the world;
In reading The Project, it should be kept in mind that it was drafted in 1982 when current tensions and terrorist activities in the Middle East were still very nascent. In many respects, The Project is extremely prescient for outlining the bulk of Islamist action, whether by "moderate" Islamist organizations or outright terror groups, over the past two decades.