The teenage boys arrested for the Hatzola ambulance arson likely don’t even ascribe to Islamism, but “rather they ascribe to the eventual goals of what they perceive is Islamism,” Haras Rafiq, vice president of policy at Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
As of today, UK police have charged four suspects for an arson attack that destroyed four ambulances belonging to the Jewish volunteer organization Hatzola outside Machzike Hadath Synagogue in Golders Green, in London, last month. The four suspects are of British-Pakistani origin.
Shortly after the arson, the new-on-the-scene Shi’ite terror group Ashab al-Yamin (the Islamic Movement of the People of the Right) took to its Telegram channel to claim responsibility for the attack.
“The Machzike Hadath Synagogue is one of the most important centers of Orthodox Judaism [...] and one of the main bastions of support for Israel in Britain,” the video text reads.
Some have highlighted the fact that the majority of Pakistanis are Sunni, and not Shi’ite like in Iran. The question was raised: how could Sunni teenagers be radicalized by Shi’ite ideology? Was Iran even behind the attack?
Rafiq told the Post it’s possible. He calls Israel the “opium of the masses” in that it unites even non-Islamists towards a common Islamist goal. This common enemy [in Israel] has on multiple occasions brought together Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims, who typically do not work together.
“Sunni groups [such as Hamas] may not agree with the Shi’ites being proper Muslims; they’re deviants, but they’re still one of us.”
“They bought into this ‘them and us’ narrative of Islam is under attack. We belong to a group. Everybody who’s not in that group is exclusionary. And people outside of the group are oppressing our group.”
“We’re now facing youngsters who have ascribed to this groupthink of the West, America, Israel the UK establishment, is at war with Islam and Muslims,” he said, adding that this is what he believes happened to the four teens because “they have a hatred of Israel, they have a hatred of the US, they dislike and probably have a hatred of the UK establishment and the West in general because they’ve been indoctrinated to this political ideological worldview. And they’re probably not even Islamist by the true sense of wanting to set up a utopian Islamist state and enforce a version of Sharia state law and to spread that around the world.”
Suspects 'not ideologically linked to Islamism'
In this lightly more nebulous way, swathes of youngsters, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, have been radicalized to the Islamist worldview, Rafiq explained.
The four are being tried for arson with intent to endanger life and not terrorism. The definition of terrorism in the UK is the use or support of violence or harm or threat to advance an ideological or a political position.
Rafiq argues that the four suspects are not ideologically linked to Islamism, but are nevertheless victims of it.
“I suspect highly these guys are victims of Islamism beyond Islamists and Islam in this case, because it happens in Muslims. They have been radicalized to a certain extent.”
Rafiq said he does not believe this radicalization took place in mosques, as it may have done a decade ago.
“Radicalization can still happen in some mosques, for sure. But really, it’s on Telegram, WhatsApp, X, Instagram, TikTok, that’s where the action is.”
Their lack of ideology is further evidenced by their amateur tactics. For example, in the text in one of their videos claiming an attack, the group uses the word ‘Israel.’
“No Islamist organization would use the word Israel. They would use occupied territories or Palestine, because it’s blasphemous for them to actually, even in writing, recognize the state of Israel.” For this reason, Rafiq says he “guarantees” this was written by AI.
“Maybe they’re linked to the IRGC, maybe they’re not, but I don’t believe they have a command and control structure.”
In terms of what needs to be done, Rafiq said civil society needs to band together, recognize, and “understand what this Islamism beyond Islamist and Islamic ideology is all about and set up in different walks of life to combat it.”
While the radicalization process has evolved, Rafiq insists that “we need to stand up to this Islamist worldview in the same way that we will stand up against fascism and communism,” before it escalates further.