via Egypt and America’s ‘Islamist dilemma’ – latimes.com.
More recently, the White House said it was open to a Brotherhood role in a future government, provided the group renounces violence and commits to the democratic process.
Renouncing violence and actually doing so are two separate things, as Hamas, Hizbollah, and other Islamist groups prove time and time again. A little more on the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood’s propensity for violence and its hatred of America, from a WAPO op-ed:
Under a different name (Hamas), the Muslim Brotherhood runs the Gaza Strip. Hamas’s charter states unequivocally that it wants to eradicate Israel. It mentions the 1978 Camp David accords, and not with admiration. (“Egypt was, to a great extent, removed from the circle of the struggle through the treacherous Camp David Agreement.”) No doubt that in an Egyptian election, the call to repudiate the treaty will prove popular – as popular as the peace with Israel has not been.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s most influential thinker was the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb. He was hanged in 1966, but not before he had managed to turn out a vast amount of writings. He showed almost superhuman courage and was, in many respects, a formidable man. But he was also a racist, a bigot, a misogynist, an anti-Semite and a fervent hater of most things American. As if to prove that familiarity breeds contempt, he had spent about two years in the United States.
The Egyptian crisis has produced the usual blather about the role of America. The United States remains powerful and important, but it has already lost control of events – not that it ever really had it. Moreover, it hardly matters what Washington now says. The Islamists of the Brotherhood do not despise America for what it does but for what it is. Read Qutb’s purplish alarm at the dress and appearance of American women. Read his racist remarks about blacks. The Islamic state Qutb envisioned would be racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian as well. It would treat women as the Taliban now does – if only because the Taliban, too, reveres Qutb. He rejected a clemency offer, saying his words would matter more if he was dead. He was right.
So how to average Egyptians fit into all this? Some random numbers from a recentPew poll via the Weekly Blitz:
In Egypt, 30 percent like Hizballah (66 percent don’t). 49 percent are favorable toward Hamas (48 percent are negative); and 20 percent smile (72 percent frown) at al-Qaida. Roughly speaking, one-fifth of Egyptians applaud the most extreme Islamist terrorist group, while around one-third back revolutionary Islamists abroad. This doesn’t tell us what proportion of Egyptians want an Islamist government at home, but it is an indicator.
In Egypt, 82 percent want stoning for those who commit adultery; 77 percent would like to see whippings and hands cut off for robbery; and 84 percent favor the death penalty for any Muslim who changes his religion.
Asked if they supported “modernizers” or “Islamists” only 27 percent said modernizers while 59 percent said Islamists…
Color us skeptical but if the CNN video of random demonstrator’s almost immediately calling for war against Israel is any indicator, none of this bodes well for the U.S.
As for Obama, he’s been open to the Muslim Brotherhood since before being electedpresident. Lest we forget the media ignorance toward Obama’s church reprinting an op-ed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s terrorist wing Hamas.
The White House is now open to a role for the Muslim Brotherhood, it has apparently‘held secret meeting with Muslim Brotherhood’ in Egypt, and the concerns about Obama’s continual outrreach to Hamas can be readily justified.
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