As is clearly laid down in its doctrine, Hamas is directly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Its aim is the elimination of the Jewish state and the return of the whole Palestinian region to the Muslim faith, without Judaism or Christianity.

It is worth recalling that Hamas wants the destruction of any political state or religion other than Islam — that means Hamas has Christians of all traditions in its crosshairs.

This poses a danger much greater than the Cold War, because radical Islamism simply wants to wipe out our civilization, not just to instrumentalize it, as the Soviets wanted to do.

As the head of the Muslim Brotherhood stated on the Egyptian TV two years ago, "we do not need to declare the jihad in Western Europe, we will conquer it with migration."

The map released by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, laying out the new ISIS "caliph" in Iraq, also applies to Hamas and the new Palestinian Islamist sphere, including the PLO and the Shiites. Al-Baghdadi wants to kill any and all other ideologies, but when it comes to fighting the "infidels," all are considered good allies.

In fact, what happens in the Islamist political and ideological universe leads us to think that an alliance is in place between Hamas, the old “secular" PLO and the Hezbollah Shiites — an alliance which is gradually strengthening. The PLO has the same origin as Hamas.

A new — and violent — Islamism is seeking its own hegemonic space, while the United States is leaving the Middle East and Vladimir Putin’s new Russia is slowly building its Eurasia, of which the old Middle East of the Cold War is a periphery.

Hamas was born exactly at the sunset of the East-West clash, in 1987, and wanted to establish an Islamic state by means of war, the only way to impose Islam on the whole area of Palestine under the British Mandate. Hence the terrorist group was a problem not only for Israel, but also for Egypt, Jordan, and southern Iraq.

The expensive, but well-funded, Hamas welfare system was used to create its protection network and recruit new members.

Hamas is a state within the state: It has its own welfare sector, which is the best propaganda for the poor masses of the region; a network of weapons acquisition, Al Mujahiddin al Filastinun, which is also responsible for the training and organization of the "spontaneous" demonstrations; an intelligence service, Jehaz Aman, which mainly carries out counterespionage activities to flush out infiltrators, but also collects data on the Israeli targets to be eliminated. There is also a media department, A'aalam, which is in charge of propaganda.

This movement is rather a parallel and simultaneous danger for Israel and for us Europeans; we will soon see it at work in our countries, and this will not only depend on our support for the Jewish state, but will be functional to the penetration of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood into the Balkans (where they already are) and into the wide Islamic communities already present in Western Europe.

In fact, while striking its attacks, the Islamist group makes no distinction between Jews and tourists, because they are both infidels. And the Muslim among them is also an "apostate," and hence must be killed, according to the logic of jihad, which does not regard only al-Qaida, but is a choice made by all the already known Islamist organizations, including Hamas.

Where do they find funds, amounting to millions of dollars each year? The money come from some Arab-Israeli associations, but mostly from charitable societies and organizations (possibly money laundering plays a role in this regard) based in Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Great Britain, Germany, the United States, the Arab Emirates, France and Italy.

Moreover, besides the international organizations, Hamas also controls the trafficking of human beings from Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan, as well as smuggling through the underground passages of Rafah and the Sinai illegal networks.

I hope that, in the future, proper information on the Palestinian issue will prevent most media, and most European and Italian politicians (Baroness Ashton, the former European Commissioner for Foreign Policy, is a case in point) from defending the Palestinians and particularly those who use and manipulate them, namely Hamas and all the great network of the Middle East jihad which, in the near future, will also affect us in Western Europe.

Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is president of "La Centrale Finanziaria Generale Spa," one of Italy's leading financial firms.