How bad is the Brotherhood?
Op-ed: Despite reassurances, Muslim Brotherhood’s rise likely to bring difficult days for Israel
According to the latest reports, the Muslim Brotherhood has officially won a majority of the seats in Egypt’s parliament. This is not what we were told would happen when the rebellious demonstrations began in Tahrir Square last year. The so-called Arab Spring was supposed to be a harvest of political rebirth and enlightenment.
However, the latest developments show yet again that the Arab world isn’t heading towards democracy and freedom, but rather, is approaching the strict and clearly non-democratic religious doctrines of Islam.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the largest Islamic fraternal organization in Egypt and perhaps the world. It was banned from entering politics for decades, but on account of the popular uprising in Egypt the movement was allowed to run for parliament and has now won a majority. What does that bode for the future?
The phenomenon of Muslim Brotherhood Jew hatred and Israel-bashing has existed for many years. In his book Jihad and Jew Hatred, German scholar Matthias Kuntzel writes: “From its founding in 1928 The Society of Muslim Brothers has been the driving force in the dramatic shift between a neutral or even pro-Jewish attitude in the Arab world to a rabidly anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish one. For today’s global Islamist movement, the Muslim Brothers are what the Bolsheviks were for the Communist movement of the 1920s – the ideological reference point and organizational core which decisively inspired all the subsequent tendencies and continues so to this day.”
The Brotherhood’s links to the Nazis began during the 1930s and were close during the Second World War, involving agitation against the British, espionage and sabotage, as well as support for terrorist activities orchestrated by Haj Amin el-Hussaini in British Mandate Palestine. This was confirmed by a wide range of declassified documents from the British, American and Nazi governmental archives.
‘Fight to continue until Judgment Day’
Reflecting this connection, the Muslim Brotherhood also widely disseminated Hitler's Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Arab translations, further deepening and extend already existing hostile views about Jews and Western societies. The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood Hassan al Banna said, for example:
“...the civilization of the West, which was brilliant by virtue of its scientific perfection for a long time, and which subjugated the whole world with the products of this science to its states and nations, is now bankrupt and in decline.”
While Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood’s home base, the organization has branches in 70 countries, including Bahrain, Syria, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The Palestine branch was established in 1935 by Hassan al Banna’s brother. In 1987, the Hamas branch of the Muslim Brotherhood was founded and represents today a bitter threat to Israel on every front.
In October 2011, Dr. Muhammad Abd Al-Rahman Al- Masri wrote that the conflict between Muslims and Israel is, at heart, religious and that jihad must be waged wherever Islamic land is occupied: “The conflict between the Zionist state and the Muslim ummah is not like the fight between a landowner and a plundering occupier. This fight is, in essence, a struggle of faith...The Koran indicates this fight (will continue) until the Day of Judgment.”
Another writer on the Muslim Brotherhood website said: “The attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo is one of the milestones of Egyptian revolution.” Moreover, in a recent MEMRI report on a Muslim Brotherhood website, the researchers documented the worst degree of Holocaust denial and condemnations of the Egyptian Israel peace treaty.
So how bad is the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise for Israel? Despite reassuring words by Brotherhood spokesmen, the movement’s long anti-Jewish track record and its recent entry into Egyptian parliament suggest that difficult days are ahead.
