February 7, 2011© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
"Incredible"
President Obama was interviewed on Fox News yesterday. When asked if he thought the Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt was a threat, he responded:
"I think that the Muslim Brotherhood is one faction in Egypt. They don't have majority support in Egypt."
Pressed again on the subject of the Brotherhood as threat, he elaborated:
“They are well-organized, and there are strains of their ideology that are anti-U.S. There's no doubt about it.
"But here's the thing that we have to understand, there are a whole bunch of secular folks in Egypt, there are a whole bunch of educators and civil society in Egypt that wants to come to the fore as well. And it's important for us not to say that our only two options are either the Muslim Brotherhood or a suppressed Egyptian people… What I want is a representative government in Egypt.”
http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/docs/perspectives128.pdf
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That sound you hear is yours truly, banging her head against the wall.
Do I believe that Obama is that naive? Not any more.
There's a limit to how much I can attribute the president's positions to foolishness or genuine innocence. This is a faux-naive political stance, in my book. "A whole bunch of secular folks in Egypt"? Give me a break.
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Yes, there are secular people in Egypt who have been pushing, with merit, for political reform. But they are powerless -- without political organization or funding (as versus the Brotherhood which has both). What is more -- and this should be noted carefully -- many of those who are "secular" (read, not Islamist) are left wing radicals and not moderates at all.
I've previously shared statistics regarding the attitudes of Egyptians, including, we must assume, a good many of those whom Obama refers to as a "whole bunch of folks." But let's take a look again at information from Caroline Glick, provided just a few days ago:
"According to a Pew opinion survey of Egyptians from June 2010, 59 percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers...Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics. When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.
"Eighty two percent of Egyptians support executing adulterers by stoning, 77% support whipping and cutting the hands off thieves. 84% support executing any Muslim who changes his religion."
Representative government in Egypt? If Muslim Brotherhood, which has been held at bay because it has been illegal, is legitimized as one part of a "representative government," exactly whom do you imagine is going to gain control?
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A piece by Dr. Jonathan Rynhold -- "US Policy Regarding the Upheaval in Egypt: Endangering the Strategic Foundations of Regional Stability" -- which just went up on the BESA website today sounds similar themes. Rynhold writes that:
"...although many of the demonstrators are driven by the demand for reform, the only real alternative to the current regime is Islamist. The Islamists are more popular and inestimably better organized than the reformers. (Emphasis added)
"...US policy can certainly influence the outcome. It is with this in mind that the Obama administration's call for the immediate' replacement of Mubarak and the inclusion of 'non-secular' groups in the new government is cause for grave concern. The administration, sensitive to its standing in Arab public opinion, wants to be seen to be supporting a popular movement. It wants to banish its unpopular image in the region as an 'imperialist' power that props up repressive governments...the administration seems to believe that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is 'okay' because they believe that the Brotherhood has generally operated without violence in the domestic Egyptian arena... (Emphasis added)
"This emerging US policy is potentially very dangerous. The 'peaceful' Islamists would most likely hollow out any reformist government that they are part of. Their anti-Western stance is deeply ideological; it is not related to the specifics of American policy. Once released from the constraints imposed by the current regime, they are likely to become a lot less peaceful. In the meantime, the behavior of the US is straining America's relations with other key regional allies such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Indeed, America's apparent willingness to abandon its allies and embrace the Islamists will damage American credibility, harm the standing of its Arab allies and strengthen anti-Western Islamists across the region. It is no good winning a popularity contest today, if you lose the region to Islamists tomorrow." (Emphasis added)
http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/docs/perspectives127.pdf
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And please, take a look at "Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood: In Their Own Words," by Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi, a senior researcher on the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Halevi, who is fluent in Arabic, wrote:
"The Muslim Brotherhood...has taken a greater role in organizing the protest against the Egyptian regime as it unfolds its independent political agenda...Rashad al-Bayumi, the Muslim Brotherhood's second-in-command, announced in an interview with Japanese TV (and cited by al-Hayat) that the group would join a transitional government in order to cancel the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, as it 'offends the Arabs' dignity and destroys the interests of Egypt and other Arab states.' (Emphasis added)
"...The Muslim Brotherhood does indeed participate in political activity and defend the democratic process. That is not, however, because it has accepted the principles of Western democracy, but rather because the democratic process can be exploited to establish an Islamic regime...
"The Muslim Brotherhood platform also noted [in 2007] that 'the rule in [Egypt] must be republican, parliamentary, constitutional and democratic in accordance with the Islamic Sharia,' and that 'the Sharia ensures liberty for all.'"
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Words can be distorted to mean whatever its user wants them to mean. The problem occurs when the listener, willfully or not, accepts another meaning without paying close attention to what was intended: There is, in fact, no such thing as Sharia rule that would be democratic and provide liberty for all.
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Halevi explains:
"Interviewed on September 17, 2007, by the Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Karama, Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammad Mahdi ‘Akef said that the organization's campaign slogan would be: 'Sharia is the Solution'...He devoted his May 12, 2007, weekly missive to an exposition of democracy as seen through Muslim Brotherhood eyes. He said that only Islam, which was given to men by Allah, was the expression of true democracy... (Emphasis added)
"Akef has never equivocated regarding his views on Western democracy. On April 30, 2005, he told the Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Ahram that the Muslim Brotherhood opposed American democracy because it was 'corrupt and serves the American agenda....'
One of ‘Akef's examples of America's 'corrupt values' is the attempt to stop female circumcision... 'which has been prevalent since the time of the Pharaohs.'
"... jihad, that is, holy war against the infidels, is one of the fundamental elements spread by the Muslim Brotherhood. The organization's ideology, as it appears on its official website, regards 'the Prophet Muhammad as its leader and ruler, and jihad as its path.' Jihad has a global strategy beyond self-defense; it is the unceasing attack on every infidel rule, intended to widen the borders of the Islamic state until all mankind lives under the Islamic flag. (Emphasis added)
You can read the entire briefing here.
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You are getting a clear picture, my friends? There are reasons why I have not been sleeping well.
It behooves every American to internalize this danger and to do everything within reason to stop the man in the White House from making things worse than they already are.
As JPost editor David Horovitz wrote in an analysis yesterday:
"Washington's apparent disinclination, as it now tries to influence the process of Mubarak's replacement, to internalize the dangers highlighted by the Iran, Lebanon and Turkey disasters, and thus do everything in its power to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood [from] presiding over a similar process in Egypt is incomprehensible."
(If you are inclined to write to tell me that Obama's actions are quite comprehensible if you understand his larger agenda, please refrain. These are Horovitz's words.)
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
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