• Denmark's Foreign Minister, Martin Lidegaard, did not of course address the question: If your neighbor is trying to import weapons while threatening to kill you, what are you supposed to do about that? He also did not address the similar blockade of Gaza by Egypt, which faces the same problem. The more terror tunnels Hamas members build, the more respect they get from the West.
• As someone born and raised a Muslim in the Middle East, and still living there, I can assure Europeans officials that if they think the recognition of Hamas and Palestinian statehood would encourage Hamas to change its charter and abandon its terrorists attacks, they could not be more wrong. Why then should Hamas change its charter or tactics, or commit itself to a peaceful resolution, when its current terror tactics seem to be working so magnificently?
• "We do not distinguish between what was occupied in the 1940s and what was occupied in the 1960s... We will continue until the very last usurper is driven out of our land." – Sheik Nizar Rayan, a Hamas leader, Gaza, 2005.
• The EU authorities speak about "peace talks," and a "two-state solution;" Hamas does not. Hamas openly rejects them. If one compares the language these governments use with the language Hamas officials use, they would appear to live on different galaxies. To Hamas, and apparently to many countries in Europe, Israel as no right to defend itself and no right to exist. But Europe is ready to prop up, with unconditional support, racist, anti-humanitarian organizations such as the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Is this really the spirit of pluralism, humanism and tolerance these "good," "moral" European governments and the Vatican support?

This month, the Vatican signed the first treaty with "the state of Palestine," which it had already recognized in 2012.

The Vatican is not the only European state to have recognized the Hamas and Abbas government as an independent state. The Vatican is just the latest member of a trend that speaks volumes about how alarmingly clueless European states are about the conflict in the region and how blind they have become to see who actually causes terrorism and killings there.

Pope Francis greets Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the Vatican, May 16, 2015. (Image source: RT video screenshot)

Sadly, last year, Europe showed that terrorism and threats to commit genocide might just be the best way to acquire national independence.

In October 2014, the Britain's House of Commons voted in favor of symbolic motion that stands as initial stage of UK recognition of a "Palestinian state."

Then Sweden's government became the first major European country officially to recognize the state of "Palestine."

Shortly after that, the lower house of Spain's parliament voted overwhelmingly to recognize "Palestine" as a state, and then the Portuguese parliament did the same.

Into the bargain, call it a bonus, Finland and Denmark (in Copenhagen, before it was hit with a terror attack -- like those with which Israel has been contending for decades -- warned Israel of EU sanctions. Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said Israel could face EU sanctions over its actions in Palestinian areas.

In September, Denmark's Foreign Minister, Martin Lidegaard, said that if Israel does not commit to end its "blockade" of Gaza and stop "illegal settlements," then tougher steps should be adopted. "If nothing happens in the peace talks this time," he said, "and if we don't see a new pattern of response from Israel's side, then we will need to discuss the possibility of taking new steps, including changes to our trade relations with Israel." He did not, of course, address the question: If your neighbor is trying to import weapons while threatening to kill you, what are you supposed to do about that? He also did not address the similar blockade of Gaza by Egypt, which faces the same problem.

Finally, as the ultimate prize, on December 17, 2014, the General Court of the European Union, the second-highest court in the bloc, declared that it had removed Hamas from the list of terrorist organizations: "Hamas should no longer be included on an influential list of international terrorist organizations."

Have these parliaments and courts not read Hamas's charter, especially in its Article 7, which openly calls for genocide against the Jews, not only in Israel, but all over the world? Have the not heard the saying in much of the Arab world: "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people" -- namely, Europe's Christians?[1] Have they not seen how Islamic extremists have been targeting Christians and others not only in the Middle East but right there among them in the West?

Is this really the spirit of pluralism, humanism and tolerance these "good," "moral" European governments and the Vatican support?

The EU authorities speak about "peace talks" and "a two state solution;" Hamas does not. Not only has Hamas never cared about such niceties; it openly rejects them. The more Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel and murder of all the Jews, the more the Western governments incomprehensibly seem to interpret this as a call for peace. If one compares the language these governments use with the language Hamas officials use, they would appear to live in different galaxies.

In July 2014, Hamas once more made it clear that "peace" is not its aim. When an Arabic-language television interviewer asked Mushir Al Masri, a Hamas MP and media spokesman, "Is there a proposal of Hamas?" he responded:

"This is just the nonsense of the Zionists and a dream of theirs to live in peace and calmness for 10 years. We shall keep disturbing the Zionists until the last of the Zionists leaves our Palestinian land. Because every truce is temporary for a certain period of time. We are not talking about a long term truce. We are not talking about a peace agreement."
"'A truce' in the dictionary of the resistance means preparing for the next battle. Our resistance will keep on developing, producing and filling its arsenals and in the production of surprising elements for the next battles until the Zionist enemy leaves our land, with the help of Allah."

"In Islam peace has a different meaning," wrote the scholar Diane Weber Bederman. "And it is important that we understand that meaning when we talk about peace with Muslim leaders, especially those who represent Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, al Qaeda. Peace in Islam means submission to Allah. The ultimate meaning of Islamic peace is all of us living in Dar-al-Islam—the house of submission."

During last summer's war, started by Hamas rockets fired into Israel, the journalist Arsen Ostrovsky wrote: "In the last 24 hours alone, over 120 rockets have been fired on southern Israel. That's approximately five rockets per hour..." -- at a country the size of Vancouver Island.

At the end of that operation, Hamas once more showed that its struggle is all about destruction: hundreds of dead and wounded people -- institutionalized human sacrifice -- used as propaganda for the television cameras. To Hamas, and apparently to many countries in Europe, Israel has no right to defend itself and no right to exist. But Europe is ready to prop up with unconditional support racist, anti-humanitarian organizations such as Palestinian Authority and Hamas?

As someone born and raised a Muslim in the Middle East, and still living there, I can assure European officials that if they think that the recognition of Hamas and Palestinian statehood would encourage Hamas to change its charter and leave its terrorist attacks, they could not be more wrong. Perhaps the Europeans are just hoping that if they keep on paying diplomatic "protection money" and keep on giving terrorists what they say they want, the terrorists will see to it that nothing (more) blows up in their cities. Or maybe they are just currying favor for business contracts or Muslim votes.

In 2010, Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahhar said: "Have we given up our lands occupied in 1948? We demand the liberation of the West Bank, and the establishment of a state in the West Bank and Gaza, with Jerusalem as its capital – but without recognizing [Israel]. This is the key – without recognizing the Israeli enemy on a single inch of land....This is our plan for this stage – to liberate the West Bank and Gaza, without recognizing Israel's right to a single inch of land, and without giving up the Right of Return for a single Palestinian refugee."

Sheik Nizar Rayan, a Hamas "political" leader, said at a rally in Gaza, in 2005: "We will not rest until we liberate all our land, all our Palestine. We do not distinguish between what was occupied in the 1940s and what was occupied in the 1960s. Our Jihad continues, and we still have a long way to go. We will continue until the very last usurper is driven out of our land."
Hamas is harmful not only to Israel, but also to its own Gazan people. Hamas has reportedly carried out, with perfunctory trials at best, public executions by firing squads against alleged "collaborators" -- their own citizens who oppose Hamas terrorism -- possibly as "examples" to others in the Gaza Strip.

The engagement by Hamas in war-profiteering and financial corruption is also no secret.
"With multi-million-dollar land deals, luxury villas and black market fuel from Egypt, Gaza's rulers made billions while the rest of the population struggled with 38-percent poverty and 40-percent unemployment," wrote Doron Peskin, a Middle East expert in regional economies.
The Institute for Palestine Studies published a detailed report on Gaza's terror tunnels in the summer of 2012. Hamas used child labor to construct its underground network in Gaza, work which resulted in a large number of child deaths: "At least 160 children have been killed in the tunnels, according to Hamas officials," the report noted.

Hamas also openly declares that it engages in jihad against the Jews in Israel and worldwide. Do European governments call for and enforce the demilitarization of Gaza until Hamas officials change their charter and abandon terrorist attacks? No, they recognize Hamas and a "Palestinian state."

The more terror tunnels Hamas members build and the more terror attacks they carry out, the more support they get from the West. The more Jews they kill, the more they are respected.
The more they exploit their own children and use them as human shields, they more "heroic" they become in the eyes of the West.

The more cartoons they broadcast on their children's channel indoctrinating Palestinian children, telling them why they should "shoot all the Jews" or "kill the Christians and Jews – to the last one," the more recognition and "aid money" they get.

Why then should Hamas change its charter or tactics, or commit itself to non-violence and a peaceful resolution, when its terror tactics seem to be working so magnificently?

Western governments should stop projecting their own wishes onto Hamas and should see Hamas as it really is: A terrorist group with a genocidal agenda that must be demilitarized for the future of all of us.

Recognizing Hamas or a Palestinian state does not mean protecting Palestinians. Palestinians can only be protected by stopping their incitement. That can be done in one minute and with no money. Europe and the West can also insist that all future funding be linked to Palestinians educating their children for peace instead of war. The funding first needs to be linked to changes, as worked so well in the Soviet Union with the Jackson-Vannick Amendment, which predicated all grain to the Soviet Union on allowing its people to leave. The funding then needs to be paid out in installments, after the changes have been made -- and maintained. No education for peace, no funding. The only way to actually build a Palestine mature enough to have a state is by changing the expectations of Palestinians about what is acceptable -- and by staying committed to those changes over time -- in addition to the direct negotiations with Israel, to which the Palestinians are committed under international law.

The Pope was wise enough to see that the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas could be -- but was not yet -- "an angel of peace." Egypt and Jordan live in peace side-by-side with Israel. The Palestinians could, too. Just not now.

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[1] About the "Saturday people," Hamas's former minister of culture, Atallah Abu Al-Subh, has said: "The Jews are the most despicable and contemptible nation to crawl upon the face of the Earth, because they have displayed hostility to Allah

• Social welfare fraud of the kind perpetrated in Denmark is being repeated throughout Europe.
• Because Anjem Choudary's welfare payments are not taxed, his income is equivalent to a £32,500 ($50,000) salary. By comparison, the average annual earnings of full-time workers in Britain was £26,936 ($41,000) in 2014.
• A Swedish soldier deployed in Afghanistan said that he was likely to get less help when he came back to Sweden than returning jihadists were.

More than 30 Danish jihadists have collected unemployment benefits totaling 379,000 Danish krone (€51,000; $55,000) while fighting with the Islamic State in Syria, according to leaked intelligence documents.

The fraud, which was reported by Television 2 Danmark on May 18, comes less than six months after the Danish newspaper BT revealed that Denmark had paid unemployment benefits to 28 other jihadists while they were waging war in Syria.

The disclosures show that Islamists continue to exploit European social welfare systems to finance their activities both at home and abroad — costing European taxpayers potentially millions of euros each year.

According to Television 2 Danmark, the welfare fraud was discovered after the Danish intelligence agency PET began sharing data about known Danish jihadists with the Ministry of Employment to determine if any of these individuals were receiving unemployment benefits.

As a percentage of the overall population, Denmark is the second-largest European source of foreign fighters in Syria after Belgium. At least 115 Danes have become foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq since Syria's civil war broke out in March 2011, according to a recent report by the Center for Terrorism Analysis, an agency of PET. The report states:

"CTA assesses that approximately half of those who have gone abroad are now back in Denmark, while a quarter of them remain in the conflict zone. CTA assesses that two thirds of these individuals have been in the conflict zone for more than a year. The remaining travelers are located elsewhere abroad. CTA assesses that at least 19 travelers from Denmark have been killed in Syria and Iraq."

The CTA admits that, "the number may be higher" than 115. The comment is a tacit recognition that it does not know exactly how many Danes have become jihadists abroad.
In April, it emerged that the parents of Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein — a Danish-Jordanian jihadist responsible for the terror attacks in Copenhagen in February 2015 in which two people died — have been welfare recipients in Denmark for more than 20 years. Omar's parents received a total of 3.8 million krone between 1994 and 2014, amounting to roughly 500,000 euros or $560,000.

Social welfare fraud of the kind perpetrated in Denmark is being repeated throughout Europe.
In Austria, police arrested 13 jihadists in November 2014 who were allegedly collecting welfare payments to finance their trips to Syria. Among those detained was Mirsad Omerovic, 32, an extremist Islamic preacher who police say raised several hundred thousand euros for the war in Syria. A father of six who lives exclusively off the Austrian welfare state, Omerovic has benefited from additional payments for paternity leave (Väterkarenz).

Austrian police also arrested, in August 2014, nine other jihadists who were attempting to join the jihad in Syria. Their trip was being financed by Austrian taxpayers by way of social welfare payments.

In Belgium, 29 jihadists from the Flemish cities of Antwerp and Vilvoorde were prevented from receiving social welfare benefits from the state. The move came after an investigation found that the individuals had been accessing their Belgian bank accounts by withdrawing money from banks in Turkey, just across the Syrian border.

Per capita, Belgium is the largest European source of jihadist fighters going to the Middle East; up to 400 Belgians have become jihadists in Syria and Iraq.

In Britain, Terri Nicholson, an assistant commander at the Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorism command unit, told the Telegraph newspaper in November 2014 that taxpayers' money was being claimed fraudulently and used by jihadists in Iraq and Syria. "We are seeing a diverse fraud, including substantial fraud online, abuse of the benefits system, abuse of student loans, in order to fund terrorism," she said.

Nicholson added that women were increasingly being used to smuggle welfare money out of Britain to fund terrorists abroad, because they supposedly arouse less suspicion.

In November 2014, for example, Amal El-Wahabi, a British mother of two, was jailed for 28 months for trying to arrange to smuggle €20,000 to her husband, a jihadist fighting in Syria. She persuaded her friend, Nawal Msaad, to carry the cash in her underwear in return for €1,000. Msaad was stopped at Heathrow Airport. The money she was carrying is thought to have come from social welfare payments.

Anjem Choudary, a British-born radical Islamic cleric who lives off the British welfare state, has repeatedly urged his followers to quit their jobs and claim unemployment benefits so they have more time to plot holy war against non-Muslims.

Choudary believes that Muslims are entitled to welfare payments because they are a form of jizya, a tax imposed on non-Muslims in countries run by Muslims, as a reminder that non-Muslims are permanently inferior and subservient to Muslims.

In 2010, The Sun reported that Choudary takes home more than £25,000 ($39,000) a year in welfare benefits. Among other handouts, Choudary receives £15,600 a year in housing benefit to keep him in a £320,000 ($495,000) house in Leytonstone, East London. He also receives £1,820 council tax allowance, £5,200 income support and £3,120 child benefits. Because his welfare payments are not taxed, his income is equivalent to a £32,500 ($50,000) salary. By comparison, the average annual earnings of full-time workers in Britain was £26,936 ($41,000) in 2014.

Although analysts are divided over the question of how many followers Choudary actually has, no one disputes the fact that he is far from alone in exploiting the British welfare system.
British taxpayers have footed the bill for the Moroccan-born Najat Mostafa, the second wife of the Egyptian-born Islamic hate preacher Abu Hamza, who was extradited to the United States in October 2012. She has lived in a £1 million, five-bedroom house in one of London's wealthiest neighborhoods for more than 15 years, and has raised the couple's eight children there.

Abu Hamza and his family are believed to have cost British taxpayers more than £338,000 in benefits. He has also received £680,000 in legal assistance for his failed U.S. extradition battle. The cost of keeping him in a British prison since 2004 is estimated at £500,000.

Fellow extremist Islamic preacher Abu Qatada, a Palestinian, has cost British taxpayers an estimated £500,000. He has also won £390,000 in legal aid to avoid deportation to Jordan.
The Islamic preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed, a Syrian, obtained £300,000 benefits before being exiled to Lebanon. The money was provided to raise his six children, including Yasmin Fostok, a single mother who makes a living as a pole-dancer in London nightclubs.
More instances of British welfare abuse can be found here.

In France, the government in March 2015 cut welfare benefits for 290 persons identified as jihadists. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve downplayed the problem. "We shouldn't make a controversy of this subject or allow people to think no action has been taken. We're taking this seriously and will continue to do so," he said.

In Germany, an analysis of the estimated 450 German jihadists fighting in Syria found that more than 20% of them were receiving welfare benefits from the German state. In addition, the 150 jihadists who have returned to Germany are eligible to begin receiving benefits again.
The Interior Minister of Bavaria, Joachim Herrmann, said:

"It should never come to this. German taxpayers' money should never directly or indirectly finance Islamist terrorism. The benefits of such terrorist parasites should be eliminated immediately. Not working and spreading terror at the expense of the German state is not only extremely dangerous, it is also the worst provocation and disgrace!"

Separately, a study by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research found that Muslim immigrants were more likely to be unemployed and living off the social welfare state than any other immigrant group in Germany.

According to the study, 55% of the immigrants from Lebanon are unemployed, as are 46% from Iraq, 37.5% from Afghanistan, 37.1% from Iran, 27.1% from Morocco and 21.5% from Turkey. In real terms, immigrants from Turkey (140,000) constitute the largest number of unemployed. The report said the root cause for the high unemployment rates was the lack of educational attainment and job training qualifications.

In the Netherlands, a Dutch jihadist named Khalid Abdurahman appeared in a YouTube video with five severed heads. Originally from Iraq, Abdurahman was living on social welfare benefits in the Netherlands for more than a decade before he joined the Islamic State in Syria. Dutch social services declared him to be unfit for work and taxpayers paid for the medication to treat him for claustrophobia and schizophrenia.

Meanwhile, city councils across the Netherlands are attempting to help rather than to prosecute returning jihadists. In the city of Delft, for example, local politicians are using taxpayer money to "reintegrate" jihadists and to help them "rebuild their lives." Dutch public television explained it this way: "The idea is that the local authorities do not want to alienate the returnees by means of a repressive approach which might lead to their further radicalization."

Separately, several Dutch-Moroccan organizations sent a letter to the Labor Party (Partij van de Arbeid, PvdA) in which they threatened to urge Dutch-Moroccans to stop supporting the party if it agreed to a proposal by its Minister of Social Affairs, Lodewijk Asscher, to cut social welfare payments to Moroccans who do not live in the Netherlands. Asscher accused the organizations of using an "improper electoral threat."

In Spain, police arrested five Muslims in the Basque Country who allegedly pocketed the social welfare payments of Redouan Bensbih, a Moroccan immigrant killed on the battlefield in Syria in March. Despite his no longer living in Spain, Bensbih continued receiving monthly payments of €836 euros ($920), which the suspects are accused of having wired to Morocco.

Meanwhile, a network of more than 250 butcher shops, grocery stores and telephone call centers was accused of financing the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. The network used the so-called hawala system — defined by Interpol as money transfer without money movement — where money is transferred through an informal and virtually untraceable system.

According to the El País newspaper, "the secret hawala network in Spain is comprised of about 300 hawaladars — the majority of them Pakistanis — who run clandestine offices in Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida, Bilbao, Santander, Valencia, Madrid, Logroño, León, Jaén and Almería, and other cities with large Pakistani communities." They manage the savings of over 150,000 Muslims, many of whom are believed to be receiving social welfare payments from the Spanish state, without any legal oversight.

The network allegedly paid the salaries of Spanish jihadists in Syria: They received about $800 if they were single and $1,200 if they were married.

In February 2015, a Pakistani couple residing in the Basque capital of Vitoria was accused of falsifying identity documents to fraudulently obtain social welfare payments for ten fictitious individuals. The man was receiving six different welfare payments and his wife was receiving four. Each welfare payment was between €6,000 ($6,600) and €10,000 ($11,000) per month. Police say that over a period of three years, the couple defrauded the Basque government of more than €395,000 ($453,000).

The Basque Country is known for its liberal social welfare policies; all residents, including illegal immigrants, are eligible to receive welfare payments. In 2012, a massive wave of immigrants from Morocco and Algeria arrived in the Basque Country in order to — in the words of a local politician — "live off of welfare benefits without working."

According to local observers, more than 65% of the immigrants from Morocco and Algeria are receiving benefits. Auditors found that in 2012 alone the Basque Country made €86 million ($95 million) in dubious welfare payments.

In Sweden, the state employment agency, Arbetsformedlingen, terminated a pilot program aimed at helping immigrants find jobs. Information had emerged that Muslim employees at the agency were helping jobseekers find jobs as jihadists for the Islamic State. Operatives from the Islamic State had also allegedly bribed — and in some cases issued death threats against — agency employees in efforts to recruit fighters from Sweden.

Also in Sweden, the government said it wanted to impose a special tax to finance a jobs program for returning jihadists. The project is based on a scheme in the Swedish city of Örebro, where the city is using taxpayer money to help returning jihadists find employment. Town councilor Rasmus Persson said:

"We have discussed how we should work for these guys who have come back, to ensure that they do not return to the battlefield. They should be helped to process the traumatic experiences they have been through."

The project was challenged by a Swedish soldier deployed in Afghanistan, who said that he was likely to get less help when he came back to Sweden than returning jihadists were. Soldier Fredrik Brandberg wrote:

"It would be wonderful if I was met with a comparable program after my homecoming, after which I could feel safe in having a regular job, with monthly income and a social stable situation in the society where I wouldn't need to wonder whether I'm wanted or not."

A spokesperson for the Swedish Armed Forces said that what happens to soldiers upon their return from war was not an issue that fell under its mandate.

Mona Sahlin, Sweden's "national coordinator of the struggle against violent extremists," poses with Swedish soldiers in Afghanistan in July 2010. Sweden's government wants to impose a special tax to finance a jobs program for returning jihadists. Meanwhile, Sweden's armed forces said that what happens to soldiers upon their return from war was not an issue that fell under its mandate. (Image source: Social Democratic Party)

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group.