British banks, with enthusiastic encouragement from Prime Minister David Cameron, succumbed to the temptation to provide “sharia compliant” loans and generally cater to the demands of the enemy, Islam.

Now one bank, HSBC, has changed its corporate mind about dealing with at least some – perhaps the worst – of its Muslim clients.

This is from Gatestone by Sam Westrop. (Sam Westrop, Douglas Murray, and Melanie Phillips are the leading voices – among very few – who dare to speak out loud, clear, and often against the destructive encroachments of Islam on British law, institutions, and traditions.)

In late July, HSBC, a British multinational bank, closed the bank accounts of Anas Al-Tikriti, a prominent British Islamist activist, and his family. HSBC also closed down the bank accounts of the Cordoba Foundation, of which Tikriti is the Director, and the Finsbury Park Mosque.

In response to enquiries, the bank simply stated that to continue providing services would be outside the bank’s “risk appetite.”

This latest round of bank account closures has come as a surprise to counter-terrorism experts and much of the media, who note that the Cordoba Foundation and the Finsbury Park Mosque have enjoyed strong political support in the past.

Just a few weeks previously, HSBC also closed the accounts of the Ummah Welfare Trust, a leading British Islamist charity that has previously partnered with the Al Salah Islamic Association, described by the U.S. Treasury Department as “one of the largest and best-funded Hamas charitable organisations in the Palestinian territories.” Senior Hamas officials have confirmed that Al Salah is “identified with us”.

Anas Al-Tikriti, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain, had his bank account, along with that of his wife and two children, shut down by HSBC. Tikriti has been described as “one of the shrewdest UK-based Brotherhood activists … [who] has sought to persuade Western governments that they should fund Brotherhood groups as moderate alternatives to al-Qaeda”.

Tikriti is also a vocal supporter of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, and he has regularly hosted a program on the Arab TV satellite station, Al-Hiwar, founded by Azzam Tamimi, Hamas’s “special envoy” to the UK. Tamimi, in 2004, told the BBC that he would become a suicide bomber if he “had the opportunity”, and described self-sacrifice for Palestine as “a noble cause”.

In an interview with the Muslim Brotherhood’s official website after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Tikriti affirmed “the right of the Iraqis to engage in legitimate resistance against foreign occupation”.  He also has stated that the decision by the Muslim Council of Britain to boycott Holocaust Memorial Day was a “principled stand”.

In response to HSBC’s closure of his bank account, Tikriti claimed that, “HSBC has targeted my family because of my activity in defence of Gaza against the barbaric aggression of the Zionists” and because of his efforts to “oppose the military coup in Egypt”.

While many would dispute Tikriti’s conclusions, his instincts might be right. The one thing that connects Tikriti with the Cordoba Foundation, the Finsbury Park Mosque and the Ummah Welfare Trust is evidence of their support for the Muslim Brotherhood and the designated terrorist group, Hamas.

The Cordoba Foundation, which Tikriti heads, has been described by Prime Minister David Cameron, as a “political front for the Muslim Brotherhood.” In 2009, Cordoba co-sponsored an event organized by Cageprisoners, a pro-jihadist group, which featured as a guest speaker Anwar Al-Awlaki, who later became a senior leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, before he was killed in a U.S. drone-strike in 2011.

The Cordoba Foundation also works closely with the Emirates Centre for Human Rights, whose website was originally registered to Tikriti’s wife, Malath Shakir, whose bank account was also shut down by HSBC. According to UAE media, the Emirates Centre for Human Rights is part of the global Muslim Brotherhood network.

For human rights! How they make a mockery of Western moral principles.

The most surprising organization to be shut out by HSBC, however, is the Finsbury Park Mosque. The loss of its bank accounts has sparked anger from leading British Muslims and sympathetic parliamentarians.

The Finsbury Park Mosque was once a much easier target for criticism. Ten years ago, the hook-handed Imam of the mosque, Abu Hamza –  recently found guilty of eleven terrorism charges after a five-week trial in New York — was arrested on terrorism charges.

We didn’t hear much about that from the media in the US, did we?

After his arrest, however, the British government, eager to rid the Finsbury Park Mosque of its pro-terror reputation, passed control of the institution to the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), one of the better-known Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the UK, and one with which Anas Al-Tikriti was once closely involved. Tikriti’s lobbying efforts for the government to embrace Muslim Brotherhood groups as “moderate” alternatives to more overtly terrorist organizations appeared to have paid off.

The government seemed oblivious, perhaps wilfully so, that the MAB’s founder, Kemal Helbawi, has proclaimed:

Oh honoured brothers, the Palestinian cause is not a struggle on borders or on land only. Rather, it is an absolute clash of civilisations: a satanic programme led by the Jews and those who support them and a divine programme carried by Hamas and the Islamic Movement in particular and the Islamic peoples in general.

We call it a clash of civilization with barbarism.

To run the Finsbury Park Mosque, the MAB appointed directors such as Mohammed Sawalha, a Hamas official described by a Brotherhood website as being “responsible for the political unit of the international Muslim Brotherhood in the UK.” Sawalha is also “said to have masterminded much of Hamas’s political and military strategy” out of London, as reported by the BBC.

In addition, the current Imam of Finsbury Park Mosque, Sheikh Rajab Zaki, was a key speaker at rallies in support of Mohamed Morsi, the former Muslim Brotherhood President of Egypt.

Finsbury Park Mosque continues to promote the Muslim Brotherhood preacher, Jamal Badawi, who has described suicide bombers and Hamas terrorists as “freedom fighters” and “martyrs.” Badawi also advocatesthe right for men to beat their wives, if they show “disregard for [their] marital obligations.”

Badawi has also shared a platform with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, and he is a director of the International Association of Muslim Scholars, which, in 2004, issued a fatwa authorizing the murder of American troops in Iraq. In addition, during the U.S. terror-financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation in 2007, Badawi was named as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Finsbury Park Mosque still enjoys strong support from the local Council and the Metropolitan Police, both of which have sponsored events at the mosque with the support of the World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a Saudi group that is a prolific publisher of anti-Jewish and anti-Shia material. WAMY is accused by a number of governments of funding terrorism.

Both the police and the local government body have provided several tens of thousands of pounds in grants to the mosque.

Likewise, the Ummah Welfare Trust has enjoyed the support of MPs; and the Cordoba Foundation has als0 received government funding through the Prevent scheme, a fund established by the previous Labour government to combat extremism.

Combat extremism by funding the extremists! What’s that if not insane?

As for Anas Al-Tikriti, in January 2014, he was invited by President Obama to the White House, as part of a delegation led by Iraqi politician Osama Al-Nujaifi, who leads the Mutahidoun bloc, a coalition of Iraqi political parties, the leading member body of which, according to Al Monitor, is the Islamic Party, the Iraqi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The biggest question now about HSBC’s actions is “why?” Some observers have suggested that the HSBC’s decision in 2012 to hire Stuart Levey, the former under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, might have something to do with it. Others have suggested the possibility that the British government’s review into the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Prime Minister is due to hear during the summer recess, might be already having some effect.

On the face of it, it seems unlikely that the government would pressure HSBC to shut down Muslim Brotherhood bank accounts while allowing the British police to fund and sponsor Finsbury Park Mosque, one of the Brotherhood’s most important institutions.

But the coalition government, much like the Labour government that preceded it, seems always to have embraced a contradictory approach in its efforts to confront British Islamism. The present government, for instance, managed to declare the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation a “Hizb ut-Tahrir front” and at the same time provide it with £70,000 of taxpayer monies.

In addition, after the announcement of the Muslim Brotherhood review in March 2014, the Foreign Office revealed that its advisory group on “freedom of religion” was to include a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Tariq Ramadan, as a board member.

Tariq Ramadan it is worth noting, is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna.

Regardless of these apparent contradictions, HSBC’s decision to close down these bank accounts is welcome. For far too long, Muslim Brotherhood groups in Britain have escaped censure in spite of their promotion of extremism and their connections to terrorism. Even if the government is dithering, at least the private sector is acting.

Without letting ourselves become too optimistic, we venture to hope that this action by HSBC night start a trend.

The Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) conspired with the Holy Land Foundation to fund Hamas, the death-cult terrorist organization that the Palestinians in Gaza have elected to govern them. As a result CAIR has been named a co-conspirator with the Holy Land Foundation which was found guilty of the crime, but CAIR remains “unindicted”. [Why?] It pretends to be the protector of American Muslims aganst a totally imaginary campaign of persecution which it dubs “Islamophobia”.

In fact, CAIR is a menacing organization dedicated to imposing oppressive sharia law on all Americans.

This is from American Thinker:

On June 5, 2012, a radical Islamic organization, CAIR-Florida, sent out a mass mailing with this message:

“CAIR Florida has been receiving an increase in complaints by law abiding American Muslims inappropriately targeted by law enforcement for questioning. This is a direct result of Islamophobic training CAIR has discovered many law enforcement officers in Florida are receiving. Join us this Saturday for an important program to learn how to protect yourself, your family, and your community against harassment by law enforcement or discrimination by businesses.”

Without verifiable proof of such “discrimination by businesses,” “Islamophobic training” or “inappropriate targeting by law enforcement”, this email appears to be a blatant slander of the tolerant American society and its legal system. The extensive influx of Muslim immigrants in recent years is the best evidence that they are treated better in the U.S.A. than in their own countries of origin.

So what motivates CAIR to besmirch their host country and stir discontent? The answer lies in the old playbook developed by the radical Left and now passed on to the new radical players: calculated fear mongering. Such messages are designed to keep American Muslims misinformed, scared, and running for CAIR’s protective cover.

In this example, CAIR was promoting its own so-called “Civil Liberties” Conference titled “Know Your Rights,” with the apparent purpose of encouraging Muslim immigrants to disobey American laws, resist law enforcement efforts, and game the system with frivolous lawsuits against local businesses and government agencies that result in more political power and personal enrichment – all under the aegis of CAIR.

The email included this flyer:

… CAIR’s faith-based protection racket is now working its way to replace all other means of social interaction for Muslim immigrants, aiming to become the only game in town for all American Muslims.  By the rules of this game, in exchange for “protection,” they dare not assimilate and integrate into the larger society, accept American traditions and values, and – most importantly – dare not leave Islam.

The framework for such games has been inadvertently established by the fallacious multiculturalist doctrine.  …

Omar M. Ahmad, founder of CAIR, once said: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant… The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” It is apparent that CAIR’s goal is not so much to contribute to the American society, but rather to replace our constitutional republic with an oppressive Islamic theocracy.  Their efforts to set up the groundwork for this have been so far successful.

Freedom-loving Americans who oppose premeditated destruction of their cultural and political integrity are being silenced with lawsuits and the myth of “Islamophobia.” Their opponents have learned how to take advantage of democratic liberties, such as the right to free speech, free expression, free press, free assembly, freedom of religion, and equal protection before the law.  But in a society the Islamists are planning for us, there will be no place for any of these individual freedoms, as evidenced by the Sharia-based totalitarian systems currently being implemented in the Middle East by the international Islamist alliance known as the Muslim Brotherhood.

All world cultures, Western and Muslim alike, share the same moral conviction, which is commonly reflected in their laws: those who show contempt for human life by committing remorseless, premeditated murder justly forfeit the right to their own life.

No. That is not true. Islam does not share the moral convictions of the West. It does not forbid its followers to murder, it only fobids them to murder fellow Muslims [eg. Koran 48:29]. And even that prohibition is honored more in the breach than the observance. Every single day Muslims are killed by other Muslims, in large numbers.

By this moral and legal standard, shouldn’t remorseless radical groups that profess contempt for our individual freedoms and actively promote their demise, forfeit their own right to enjoy these very individual freedoms? Shouldn’t their premeditated efforts to destroy the rule of law make them ineligible to be protected by these very laws? …

They should. But CAIR is favored, assisted, sustained, encouraged by the Obama administration:

The White House has recently admitted to having hundreds of behind-the-scenes meetings with CAIR …

When Eric Holder’s DOJ routinely steps in as muscle for CAIR’s ongoing litigation jihad; when Muslim employees are instigated to bring about unreasonable lawsuits against their employers; when American Muslims feel overwhelmed or bullied into silence by radical groups that claim to “represent” them, good and honest Americans must say “enough is enough” and, in the absence of government protection of their interests, resort to individual action and seek effective alternatives.

The Florida chapter of Stop Islamization of America has done just that. Calling CAIR-Florida’s flyer “offensive to our law enforcement officers and to Florida business owners,” they have created this counter flyer:

The advance of Islam must be resisted. Powerful, well-funded Islamic organizations can be frustrated. Stopping the creep takes organization, determination, thought, planning, tireless work, and much courage.

We at the American HQ of TAC are proud to announce that our British editor, Sam Westrop, wearing one or two of his several political activist hats, has chalked up a victory by all these means in London.

Two victories, in fact, as this press release reveals:

A report published by Stand For Peace exposing the extremist views and backgrounds of several foreign speakers invited to preach at a large conference in London has forced the cancellation of the event.

Organised by the Al-Muntada Trust, the ‘Month of Mercy’ was due to be held on 8th July at the Grand Connaught Rooms, but following numerous complaints and discussion with the police, the venue has stated that the conference will not go ahead.

Al-Muntada has an extensive history of hosting some of the UK’s worst hate preachers over many years. The views of the proposed speakers at the conference included justifying suicide bombings, glorifying jihad, promoting venomous homophobia, questioning criticism of female genital mutilation, spreading antisemitism, and encouraging reprehensible bigotry against Shia Muslims.

The report was compiled with research assistance from the Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy, which monitors anti-democratic and illiberal forces abroad. It was then discussed with MPs, the Home Office and security services, and was published on the Stand for Peace website.

Concerns were initially dismissed by the venue hosting the event, with one senior member of management stating that the conference “didn’t bother me at all”. But after several anti-extremist blogs and websites picked up on the report, hundreds of people complained directly to the venue and lobbied their MPs, resulting in the cancellation. The venue cited “the safety and security” concerns when they cancelled the event, saying that they had engaged in “careful consideration and liaison with the local police force”.

Sam Westrop, Associate Director of the Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy, said:

“The cancellation represents a victory for fair minded people of all faiths. By giving out the relevant information about extremist speakers, Stand for Peace was able to demystify the event’s purpose. Many people are intimidated by such events taking place around them, and lack the tools to investigate the true nature of what will be preached at them. By simply referring to public statements speakers have made in the past, members of the public were able to point out the worrying agenda that the event seemed to be pursuing. We commend the Connaught Rooms for changing their mind in the face of public concern.”

The Grand Connought Rooms cancellation follows a recent and similar warning about the activities of the Palestinian Forum in Britain (PFB). The PFB planned a ‘cultural’ event in Manchester, featuring speakers who have supported terrorism, including Azzam Tamimi and Saudi hate preacher Mohammed Al-Shareef. After StandforPeace and other campaigning organisations disseminated background information provided by the Institute, the hosting venue forced the PFB to cancel the speakers.

Notes for editors:

Stand For Peace is one of the UK’s leading anti-extremism organisations. It closely monitors and analyses extremist activity across the UK, thanks to its network of informers, and its expert researchers and analysts.

The Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy is a London-based think-tank which promotes better understanding of democratic and anti-democratic forces in the Middle East.

If it can be done there, it can be done here. It is being done here – in Florida, for instance. All it takes is organization, determination, thought, planning, tireless work, and much courage.