Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA)

On May 22, 2024, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the July 4 general elections in a statement outside Downing Street. Days later, a barrage of messages and emails in English and Arabic were sent to many British Muslims urging them to vote for specific candidates. The message started with a logo of a Palestinian flag, not a British flag, and the title “We are Pro-Democracy & Anti-Genocide.” The text read, “Dear Brother/Sister, Please use the following link to see the suggested local candidate according to your postcode. Your vote can make a difference.”

I was alerted to this by a UK-based Arab journalist. He had received the message from “Fadi,” a former colleague of ours who worked for decades for Qatari media in London and Doha. Fadi, whom I had many conversations with, never hesitated to express his devotion and admiration for the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideals.

The message was crafted by a British-based pressure group called The Muslim Vote (TMV), launched in December 2023. TMV’s spokesman is Abubakr Nanabawa, a 24-year-old British-Asian activist who, according to some reports, has close ties with Jalaluddin Patel, the former leader of the United Kingdom branch of Hizb-Ut-Tahrir, a transnational Islamist organization, designated as a proscribed terrorist organization in the UK since January 2024.¹

TMV describes itself as “a dynamic coalition of organizations and individuals, each contributing various skills, expertise, and capabilities for our community.” TMV claimed to represent the interests of Britain’s four million Muslims and urged them to vote for a list of candidates whose credentials they had already “vetted.” Remarkably, all the approved candidates share the same foreign policy of TMV and those Muslim organizations that support its cause, e.g., the support of Islamism and what TMV calls “opposing the role of the British government in the ongoing genocide and apartheid in Gaza.”

On its website and TV appearances, TMV boasted that it has the backing of several British-based Muslim organizations,² none of which follow a secular-moderate Islam. Among their list of supporters are “The Muslim Association of Britain” and “Muslim Engagement and Development,” both of which have been accused of extremism³

Mr. Nanabawa’s journey to fame is thanks to Qatari government-funded London-based media, like the Middle East Eye and The New Arab, who have been frontrunners in promoting Nanabawa, his views, and TMV.

In an interview with The Guardian on May 20, Nanabawa was asked “whether candidates should be elected on a single issue – a pro-Palestine ticket. He answered, “It’s an honorable thing for people to use a way to call out the ongoing mass slaughter of men, women, and children.” Nanabawa’s message to his host country, Britain, was, “If you want our vote, then you have to earn it.” Since October 7, 2023, organizations like the TMV have deployed activists to shore up support for its agenda in majority-Muslim areas across the United Kingdom.

Nigel Farage, a British MP and the leader of Reform UK, accused TMV of engaging in “sectarian voting” in an attempt to take over councils and win seats in the British Parliament by supporting and endorsing candidates standing on a “Gaza agenda.” Farage continued, “More than 40 council seats went to candidates standing on the Gaza platform. Of course, they all won thanks to standing in Muslim-majority constituencies. If that is not a sectarian vote, then what is?”

Today, in modern Britain, and after the dust settles in the aftermath of the UK’s general election, there are 22 MPs, including 14 Labour backbenchers, who have put their name to the pro-Gaza agenda. Two of those who ran their election campaign on a pro-Gaza ticket are Shockat Adam Patel and Ayoub Khan, who have backed an attempt by the Labour Left to force the newly-elected British government to take a challenging position towards Israel and ban arms exports to it.

Khan, Patel, and Adnan Hussain are some of those elected independent MPs who received the backing of TMV. What is Mr. Khan’s record? He was the subject of an investigation for his social media posts where he openly questioned the validity of reports that Hamas committed atrocities against Israeli civilians on October 7. He wrote, “What do they think we are? Fools?”⁴ On October 19, Khan posted another message in which he failed to show any compassion towards Israeli victims. Instead, he wrote, “This is the opportunity for those that have influence, whether it’s social media influence or political leadership, to get onto platforms to tell the world the truth. Open your eyes. Free Palestine, that must only be the right thing to do, the only solution to this atrocious killing of [Gaza] civilians.⁵“

Moving on to Patel, the new Leicester South MP pulled out a Palestinian keffiyeh in his victory speech and shouted, “This is for the people of Gaza.” Patel’s brother, Ismail, is the founder of the Islamist group Friends of Al Aqsa. Ismail has previously visited Hamas leaders in Gaza and praised them for resistance.⁶

Another candidate TMV endorsed and ensured his electoral victory was Adnan Hussain, the newly-elected MP in Blackburn. A Sunday Telegraph investigation exposed that Mr. Hussain gave a speech during a Gaza rally in 2014 in which he claimed the IDF’s Operation Protective Edge was a “Holocaust.” He called on British companies to boycott Israel. During the speech, he also said, “They let Gaza Burn, they hate Gaza. Now let’s make Israel burn, let’s make Israel burn.”⁷

The former Labour Shadow Minister, Jon Ashworth, who held his Leicester South seat since 2011, secured a majority win in 2019. In 2024, he lost his seat to Patel. Ashworth, like many other British MPs, was defeated due to a vigorous smear campaign against them, branding them as being “pro-genocide” with thousands of posters posted on walls and delivered to houses in their constituency.

The influence of the TMV cannot be underestimated, nor should the British government overlook who is funding them. Who is bankrolling the 1,000s of pro-Hamas rallies that have taken place across Britain since Hamas’s October 7 massacre? Who is financing printing tens of thousands of posters defaming British MPs? Who is funding the circulation of anti-Israel and also antisemitic literature and stickers posted on underground stations and business premises? Asked just as urgently, who is the driving force giving so much prominence to the likes of TMV and their spokesperson Nanabawa, allowing them to spread lies about a genocide being committed in Gaza and stir societal divisions? Was Nigel Farage really wrong when he claimed organizations like TMV were engaging in “sectarian politics?”

From the “Al-Aqsa Is in Danger” Libel to “The Genocide in Gaza” Canard

Even before the IDF military operation against Hamas started in Gaza, the words “Stop the Genocide in Gaza” were taking hold in Britain. It reminds me of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the father of the lie “Al-Aqsa is in danger.”⁸ Al-Husseini, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, launched claims of a wicked conspiracy that Jews wanted to demolish Al-Aqsa Mosque. The lie repeatedly incited hatred and violence against Jewish people. In August 1929, the Hebron massacre occurred in which at least 69 Jews were slaughtered in cold blood, hundreds were severely wounded, and Jewish homes and synagogues were ransacked and burned by mobs incited to violence by al-Husseini’s lie that Jews planned to seize control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, demolish Al-Aqsa and rebuild on its ruins the Third Temple.

Al-Husseini’s “Al-Aqsa is in danger” libel has been faithfully rebroadcast by all his successors, including the chairman of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, and the current head of a northern branch of the Israeli Islamic Movement, Raed Salah. Since al-Husseini invented the “Al-Aqsa is in danger” libel, decades have passed. Al-Aqsa still stands and will continue standing where it is now. But that did not stop antisemites and Israel-haters from repeating this libel against the Jews.

Hamas’s October 7 heinous terrorist attack was entitled “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.” Hamas declared it was “a necessary step and a natural reaction against Israel’s plan to eliminate the Palestinian causes, seize lands, Judaize the Palestinian lands, and establish complete control over Al-Aqsa Mosque.”⁹ Here, like during al-Husseini’s era and all his successors, the “Al-Aqsa is in danger” libel continues. Hence, today, British politicians must challenge TMV’s rhetoric and libel “Jews commit Genocide in Gaza.”

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Notes