(See also Islamist Individuals and Radical Islam)

Arab and Muslim community politics is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States and Canada. The emergence of organizations claiming to represent ethnic Arab communities as well as born Muslims, reflect four successive major developments in the North American political and social context.

The first was the proliferation of immigrants from Arab countries settling in the U.S., a phenomenon that began to develop some momentum in the 1970s.

The second development was the radicalization of Arabs in North America, under the influence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 1982 the Muslim Brotherhood, which Islam expert Robert Spencer has called "the parent organization of Hamas and al Qaeda," adopted a strategic plan known as "The Global Project for Palestine." This Project laid the groundwork for a terrorist "secret apparatus" that eventually would culminate in the creation of Hamas in December 1987 and the unveiling of the Hamas charter in August 1988. As an outgrowth of this project, in May 1991 the Muslim Brotherhood issued to its ideological allies an explanatory memorandum on "the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America." Explaining that the Brotherhood's mission was to establish "an effective and ... stable Islamic Movement" on the continent, this document outlined a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" for achieving that objective. It stated that Muslims "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands ... so that ... God's religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions."

The third development, which was also a consequence of increased immigration, was the arrival of a significant Islamic community on the western side of the Atlantic.

Finally, came the period of concern and solidarity motivated by the suffering of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Chechnya.

This section of DiscoverTheNetworks profiles many Islamist groups -- some based in the United States, others abroad. It examines their various worldviews, activities, and agendas.

The RESOURCES column of this section features:

• a category devoted to explaining, in depth, the aforementioned Muslim Brotherhood "Project," out of which developed a host of major Islamist movements and activist groups across the United States;
• an analysis of the politically charged term "Islamophobia," which, ever since 9/11, Islamist lobby organizations have used to describe American society's purported biases against -- and allegedly unfounded fears of -- Muslim people;
• an examination of how jihadists use pseudo-charitable organizations as fundraising vehicles to bankroll terrorist activities; and
• separate summaries of the "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" campaigns sponsored in recent years by the Terrorism Awareness Project. These campaigns are intended to educate college students across the United States about Islamo-fascism, the fanatical religious movement associated with the Muslim Brotherhood; this movement is spearheaded by such organizations as al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- whose common goal is the creation of a global Muslim empire ruled by an Islamic "pope" or caliphate.