Obama demands freedom for Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

Daniel Greenfield

This may have been filtered through the Egyptian media for that extra nationalistic flavor, but the demands are in line with those already made by Obama and State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
Yesterday El Fagr reported that, during their most recent phone conversation, U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson demanded that Egyptian General Sisi release all Muslim Brotherhood members currently being held for questioning: “And when Sisi rejected this order, the American ambassador began threatening him that Egypt will turn into another Syria and live through a civil war, to which Sisi responded violently: ‘Neither you nor your country can overcome Egypt and its people.’”

Moreover, the day before the Salafi party withdrew from negotiations with the new Egyptian government, Al Nahar reported that Patterson had “incited them [the Nour Party, the Salafi party] to tamper with the political scene and the road map and to threaten to withdraw from political participation if Dr. Muhammad Baradei becomes elected as Prime Minister…”
Apparently, these are the “many forms of pressure” that Patterson earlier assured Hishan Qandil the U.S. would use to reinstate the Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood Unmasked

While the current administration has a stake in referring to the Muslim Brotherhood as "moderate" and "largely secular," there is a reality very different from the view at Foggy Bottom.

The Brotherhood is a popular movement of Islam founded in 1928 by Hasan al Banna, the most prominent representative of what is sometimes referred to as Islamism. For al Banna, whatever ails the Muslim world – the umma – can be addressed by the simple sentence: "Islam is the solution." Religious law – Shariah, or "The Way" – is to be restored to its central place as an organizing principle for every sphere of life.
From the Muslim Brotherhood's point of view, whatever ails the world can be traced to the West's pernicious influence. The West stole scientific secrets, deprived Muslims of their religious faith and converted them into docile subjects. While resentment is the main current of Islamism, it has curiously united with modern mass media to spread the faith. Similarly, while the West is deplored, the technical achievements of the West are often welcomed, and even aspects of democracy – such as the civil code – which can be exploited to advance Islam, are admired. The Brotherhood openly calls for free elections, but only as a way to gain and legitimate its authority. This duality is what confuses the detractors of Islamism. Hoping for the best, some critics rely on their assertions of what we would like to believe, that the Muslim Brotherhood is indeed "moderate" and "largely secular."
In the recent Egyptian elections, journalists distinguished between the "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood and the extreme Salafists -- without noting that al Banna considered himself a Salafist, as apparently do most of the members of the Brotherhood. The Islamist synthesis of modernity and tradition is attractive to those torn between these two ideological perspectives. But make no mistake, the Muslim Brotherhood accepts modernity only to the extent it confirms an uncompromising commitment to religious dogma and imperial political designs.
According to the Islamist world view, Allah has vouchsafed to mankind a full and perfect doctrine of human behavior. And to the extent the political order is predicated on divine decree, there isn't room for rejection, whether it be in the name of democracy or individual rights. Laws cannot be passed that explicitly challenge the commands of Allah. If people can be permitted to do what Allah has forbidden, Shariah law can never be compatible with liberal democracy. If the Koran, written by the Archangel Gabriel, at the behest of Allah, says the consumption of alcohol is forbidden, there is no authority that can grant legislative sanction. In this case, as in so many others, the religious value system guarantees "civilized" behavior. So when Islamists say they want representative government, what they mean is legislation compatible with the Koran.
Who is the ultimate arbiter of state-based legislation? The imams who reflect the wisdom and compassion of Allah. For the Brotherhood, there must be absolute loyalty to fixed and eternal rules, a condition that inevitably suffocates research, free will, science and art.
Egypt is now caught in a web woven by the Muslim Brotherhood. Democracy without the Brotherhood is inconceivable, and democracy with the Brotherhood is impossible. The movement cannot be denied if free elections are permitted, but the infrastructure of democracy cannot be created so long as there is a formal adherence to Shariah.
Yet ,in most Arab countries the Muslim Brotherhood is the best organized group. This grants it an advantage over liberal rivals that are splintered into many fractions. If the West confronts the Brotherhood's leadership, it merely confirms the belief that the conspiracists are right in theor beief that the West is trying to undermine Islam. If the West does not confront the Islamists, the liberals are bound to be defeated. Damned if you do; damned if you don't. In a Kantian sense, democratic impulses should – at some point – rise to the surface, especially if Brotherhood policies do not produce jobs or adequate food supplies. Dictatorships have a way of destroying themselves when the "eternal verities" that they hold onto cannot yield the basic human needs that have been promised. It is one thing to be a good Muslim who prays five times a day; it is quite another thing to rely on one meal a day for sustenance.

Herbert London is president emeritus of Hudson Institute, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of the book Decline and Revival in Higher Education (Transaction Books).

via hudson-ny.org

Egypt’s Islamic Extremists Claim Landslide Win

Israel news photo: Muslim Brotherhood

(israelnationalnews) Egypt’s two largest Islamic extremist parties claim they won nearly 70 percent of the votes in the second round of legislative elections. The Islamic parties won approximately 65 of the votes in the first round of elections last month.,

The complex elections call on eligible Egyptians to vote for party lists that will make up two-thirds of the parliament, while individual candidates run for the other third.
The Muslim Brotherhood, running under the euphemistic name Freedom and Justice, said it won 39 percent of the votes in the contest between parties. The Salafist Islam party, named Al-Nur, said it won more than 39 percent of the ballots.
There were no declared winners in the vote for individual candidates, who face a run-off on Wednesday.
The Muslim Brotherhood formerly was ordered off-limits to American officials before the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak earlier this year. Realizing that anti-American and anti-Israel party would likely be the dominant force in Egypt, the Obama administration decided to “engage” the Muslim Brotherhood, and the president even spoke optimistically about it.
However, the strong showing by the Salafists is another in a long line of “surprises” to the American government, which promoted Palestinian Authority legislative elections five years ago and ended up with the Hamas terrorist organization as the ruling party. Hamas was created by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Iran is thrilled with election results.
Mahmoud Ghazlan, a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, told Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency, "Cairo will never allow a continuation of the Gaza blockade,” referring to Israel’s maritime embargo on Hamas-controlled Gaza to prevent more terrorists and weapons from reaching Gaza.
“Ghazlan blasted the former Egyptian regime's silence over Israel's crimes against the innocent people of the Gaza Strip, and said the new regime in Cairo will certainly pick up a new approach towards Palestine and the Palestinian issue,” the Iranian news agency reported.

Thanks Liberals and Progressives! You Obama people are swell!

Mubarak Deceived Israel as Muhammad Deceived Infidels?

In light of ousted president Hosni Mubarak's ongoing trial, Western readers may be surprised to learn who some of Mubarak's staunchest defenders are: Salafi Muslims, that is, those Muslims who practice the 7th century Islam of Muhammad, often referred to as "radicals." Sheikh Mahmoud Amer, leader of Ansar al-Sunna in Damanhur, recently appeared on the Egyptian news program Life Today arguing that, according to Sharia, it is illegal to try Mubarak, whose dealings with Israel—specifically the charge that he sold gas to it at cheap rates—were similar to prophet Muhammad's dealing with infidel enemies. I translate the most relevant excerpt: He [Hosni Mubarak] was the imam [Muslim leader]; all his actions have their circumstances. Regarding this gas issue you're talking about, whoever said that exporting gas to enemy combatants, Jews or otherwise, is impermissible? Who among the Muslim jurists [fuqaha] said this? The prophet himself died while his armor was held by a Jew [an infidel enemy] as collateral; and in the Battle of the Trench [627], the prophet negotiated with one of the polytheist tribes [enemies] to give them dates, Medina's main source of income, just so they would quit the war—because "war is deceit"; he negotiated for this purpose . Nor did divine inspiration [Allah] come down to censure him for his actions, had such actions violated Sharia. So, show me one jurist saying that it is impermissible to deal with enemy combatants—I do not say treaty-holders, as there is a treaty between us and the Jews, but I posit that between us and the Jews is war. So who among the classic jurists said that it is impermissible to deal with combatants, buying and selling? Here are the books of jurisprudence… I say the prophet negotiated with the polytheists to give them free dates just to keep their strength at bay at that time [as opposed to Mubarak, who only sold gas cheaply, Muhammad went one step further giving things for free]. So these are political and military matters, and the authority is free to pick whichever he deems most appropriate. Along with stressing Muhammad's attempt to appease Islam's infidel enemies with gifts when the latter were stronger than the Muslims, the sheikh also stressed that Mubarak was the "sultan"—an Arabic-Islamic term of special significance, conveying a certain form of sovereign political and temporal authority in Islam, complete with dispensations unavailable to the average Muslim.
Nor are these arcane notions; al-Qaeda itself has stressed these exact points. When discussing the permissibility for Muslims to deceive infidels, the late Osama bin Laden often alluded to Muhammad's attempt to appease the infidel tribe; and Ayman Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's new leader, quotes Islam's jurists as "unanimously agreeing" that "it is forbidden to overthrow" Muslim rulers, even if they are "cruel and despotic" yet "it is obligatory to wage jihad against" Muslim rulers found to be "apostate infidels" (The Al Qaeda Reader, pgs. 26-27, 121-122, 129 ).
The non-hijabbed, Westernized looking female host, somewhat flustered, retorted: "Excuse me sheikh, but this issue of comparing the actions of our blessed prophet and a former president, I mean, forgive me, but maybe one can't speak on or judge between similar circumstances."
Then Montaser al-Zayyat, an Islamist lawyer who regularly represents jihadists—including, formerly, Zawahiri—chimed in saying he too "found it hard listening to the sheikh," insisting that Mubarak should be condemned for selling gas to "the Zionists, for this is a betrayal of the [Egyptian] people."
Eventually, the debate descended into the usual shouting and yelling, with the sheikh boasting that at least Mubarak was a hero in Egypt's 1973 war with Israel, and asking the hostess and Zayyat, "Where were you on October 6, 1973?... Did you ever shoot a single bullet at a Jew?!"
This leads to the most telling aspect of this whole anecdote: while the two Muslim experts on Sharia argued over many things, there was no disagreement over two points—enmity for Israel and Jews, and the permissibility of using deceit to undermine them.

Raymond Ibrahim, a widely published Islam-specialist, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Raymond Ibrahim Hudson New York August 17, 2011 http://www.meforum.org/3016/mubarak-deceived-israel via docstalk.blogspot.com