Oded Elam - Former Mossad -- Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood identified Europe’s weakest point. Driven by naïve and misguided leaders who fail to grasp fundamentalist Islamist ideology, Europe became fertile ground for Hamas’s new strategy.
In June 2023, four men searched a remote roadside in Poland for buried weapons planted earlier by Hamas operatives. Similar searches took place in Bulgaria, Germany, and Denmark. These were not isolated efforts but part of a broader plan: moving from attacks centered in Gaza and Judea and Samaria to establishing a European terror infrastructure.
Why Europe? Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood exploited Europe’s 'moral relativism'. Europeans project their values onto radical Islam and misunderstand the long-term strategy embodied in the concept of "sabr" — patience for future Islamic dominance. As usual, Israelis and Jews pay the price.
After two years of war, Hamas’s abilities inside Gaza were weakened. The organization therefore sought arenas where Israel and European governments have slower, more limited reach. Already in 2019, under Salah al-Arouri’s direction, Hamas decided to establish an external operational arm targeting Jewish communities, Israeli sites, and Western symbols.