The Muslim Brotherhood is to Islamic terrorism what a virus is to disease. Major terrorist leaders from the Caliph of ISIS to Arafat have the Muslim Brotherhood on their resume. And the current leader of Al Qaeda led a Muslim Brotherhood splinter terror group. But its linkages to Islamic terrorism are only a secondary aspect of the organization whose focus is on Islamizing nations through more subtle means.
Paradoxically the Brotherhood has met with far less success in the Muslim world than in the West. Its greatest victories in the Arab Spring would not have happened without Obama’s backing and its takeovers of Egypt and Tunisia were rolled back by popular uprisings while its efforts in Libya, Syria and Yemen were stymied by armed conflict with other Muslims.
The Muslim Brotherhood is unpopular in Egypt these days. It’s also unpopular with Americans.
In one poll, 61 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of the Muslim Brotherhood. Only 11 percent had a positive view of the Islamic supremacist organization. Only 5 percent of Americans saw the Muslim Brotherhood’s takeover of Egypt as a positive development.
Unfortunately Obama is at odds with the views of most Americans. The Muslim Brotherhood may have lost power in Cairo, but it still wields a great deal of power in Washington D.C. Brotherhood front groups such as CAIR and ISNA have open access to the media and dominate all discussions about Islam. The MSA dominates American campuses despite its history of terror ties.
As David Horowitz has warned, “The principal institutions of Islam in this country, the Muslim American Society, the Muslim Students Association, the Islamic Society of North America, to name a few — are all fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood.”
But not every country is equally willing to roll over for the Muslim Brotherhood’s hate network.
The Muslim Brotherhood headquarters was in London, but while Washington D.C. panders to the violent Islamic supremacist organization, the UK decided it did not want to host its Jihad. Last year, the British government authorized a report on the Muslim Brotherhood by veteran diplomat Sir John Jenkins. The report has been submitted to parliament and it’s making waves.
The British government report defines "aspects of Muslim Brotherhood ideology and tactics” as “contrary to our national interests and our national security." It’s a striking contrast with a White House where the Muslim Brotherhood has its own revolving door and a rogue’s gallery of operatives.
Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the United States have been allowed to dismantle our counterterrorism training and replace it with Islamist propaganda. Even now, Obama pushes Countering Violent Extremism programs that encourage law enforcement to partner with Brotherhood front groups. Secretary of State Kerry urges including the Muslim Brotherhood in the political process.
Meanwhile the UK government has stepped forward to assert that the Muslim Brotherhood is not the solution to terrorism, instead it’s the source of the problem.
The Jenkins report rejects the “moderate” label so often slapped on the hate group by lazy media hacks. Instead it describes the Brotherhood as a clandestine group organized into a “secretive ‘cell’ structure” seeking to create a “Caliphate under sharia law” using a doctrine that allows “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society”. That ideology inspired “Al Qaida and its offshoots”. The most obvious offshoot to employ this Takfiri approach is ISIS.
It’s quite a contrast from the claim by Obama’s Director of National Intelligence that the Muslim Brotherhood is a “very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence”.
The British report rejects the idea that the Brotherhood is peaceful. Instead it states that it is prepared to engage in violence, but prefers “incremental change on the grounds of expediency” because it believes that the “political opposition will disappear when the process of Islamisation is complete”.
The Muslim Brotherhood is not moderate or peaceful. It just thinks long term. Its endgame is the same as ISIS. It just has a slower and surer way of getting there. As fellow Islamist dictator Erdogan once said in Turkey, democracy is “a train that takes you to your destination, and then you get off.”
The British report takes a hard look at the Muslim Brotherhood’s support for Hamas and its local organizations in the UK. It notes that, “much about the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK remains secretive, including membership, fund raising and educational programmes” but that its front groups “which have claimed to represent Muslim communities” wield “an influence here which is disproportionate to their size”.
It’s a vital observation that can’t even be voiced in the Senate here, let alone in the media or the White House. It is utterly inconceivable that Obama and Hillary, who have fought wars on behalf of the Brotherhood, would ever be willing to authorize the creation of a similar report on the Brotherhood.
And yet such a report is desperately needed. The Muslim Brotherhood’s front groups have hijacked our foreign policy, involved us in foreign wars, endangered our national security and undermined our ability to fight terrorism. They promote a program of mass Muslim migration while pushing anti-American agendas with the ultimate aim of destroying the Constitution and replacing it with Islamic law.
Changes are already taking places in the UK after the release of the Brotherhood report. The Board of Deputies of the Jewish community distanced itself from the Brotherhood’s Muslim Council of Britain. While the government will not currently ban the Brotherhood, Prime Minister Cameron has stated that “membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism”. That may sound mild, but it should be contrasted with the position of Democrats and even some Republicans in this country that the Muslim Brotherhood is our best friend.
Prime Minister Cameron warned that the Muslim Brotherhood is “a transnational network, with links in the UK, and national organisations in and outside the Islamic world. The movement is deliberately opaque, and habitually secretive.” He stated that “it has been a rite of passage for some individuals and groups who have gone on to engage in violence and terrorism.” He concluded that aspects of its activities “run counter to British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, equality and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.”
This is a major development not only for the UK, but for the US where any criticism of the Islamic hate network has been banished as Islamophobic. The British finding is an important weapon in our own struggle with the Brotherhood and its collaborators on the left and the right.
Cameron has warned that the UK will keep a close watch to see “whether the views and activities of the Muslim Brotherhood meet the legal test for proscription.” This is a clear warning to the Brotherhood not to abuse the hospitality of the UK or face government action. By taking this step, the UK is joining a diverse group of countries, from Egypt to the UAE to Israel, in confronting the Muslim Brotherhood.
Obama insists that his critics are isolated, but his affinity for the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the elements that isolated his foreign policy even in the Muslim world. Western countries are beginning to wake up to the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood and his CVE policy will one day go down in history as a shameless whitewashing of a violently bigoted organization that has endangered our national security.
The UK has found that the Muslim Brotherhood is a national security threat. It’s time for Republicans and Democrats to start speaking the truth about the Brotherhood.
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Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261259/naming-muslim-brotherhood-national-security-threat-daniel-greenfield