At the same time the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to deny its pivotal role in inciting the recent and ongoing spate of attacks on Egyptians in general, Coptic Christians in particular, the organization has just chosen one of the worst inciters of violence against Egypt’s Copts as head attorney for ousted president Muhammad Morsi.
For those unaware, Muhammad Salim al-Awwa, Morsi’s attorney, is the very man who back in 2010 appeared on Al Jazeera and other Brotherhood media-mouthpieces and, in a wild tirade, accused Egypt’s Christians of “stocking arms and ammunitions in their churches and monasteries”—imported from Israel no less, “the heart of the Coptic Cause”—and “preparing to wage war against Muslims.”
Then he had warned that if nothing is done, the “country will burn,” inciting Muslims to “counteract the strength of the [Coptic] Church.”
Needless to say, Awwa’s baseless allegations, as with all incitements against the Copts, led to a number of reprisals against them.
In retrospect, however, one wonders where all these alleged weapons were when the Brotherhood and their supporters recently attacked and burned some 80 churches? If the Copts were stockpiling weapons, as Awwa had insisted, “to wage war against the Muslims” in a sort of “Egyptian Reconquista,” surely they would have at least tried to defend some of their churches with these alleged weapons?
But of course they had and have no weapons and Awwa was merely disseminating a lie to provoke Islamic uprisings against Egypt’s Christian minority.
Such is the quality of the man chosen by the Muslim Brotherhood to prove that Morsi is innocent of inciting violence against Egypt.