Salem News
Dr. Ashraf Ezzat
2/22/2014
"The mockery of democracy and twist of logic happened in Egypt with the sweeping parliamentary victory of the Muslim Brotherhood MB - the mother ship of all Islamist terrorist groups around the globe - and as in the case of Hamas - the Palestinian MB offshoot - the voters were manipulated by the cheap exploitation of religious slogans and verses.
Like Hamas, the MB used the misleading line
"Islam is the solution"
as their favorite propaganda line
and really worked the magic amongst the gullible, the needy and the uneducated.
"Islam is the solution"
as their favorite propaganda line
and really worked the magic amongst the gullible, the needy and the uneducated.
But Unlike Gaza, Egypt was no narrow strip of land. Egypt, the land of one of the greatest and most ancient civilizations on earth still harbored, despite decades of corruption and fundamentalism, some wisdom. . . ."
~ Read entire article Found at Salem News
Muslim Brotherhood
The Muslim Brotherhood is a powerful Islamic organization, especially in Egypt. It has been around for some time and has been a prototype and an inspiration for many modern Muslim extremist groups and fundamentalist organizations.
The Muslim Brotherhood began as an effort to improve social and individual morality and fight the British occupation. It advocated both political and spiritual reform and insisted that this be achieved by organizing life and society around the Koran. These beliefs were combined with a drive to fight oppressors, get rid of poverty and social injustice and bring Muslims back to their roots. It didn't oppose modernism and the education or employment of women as long it didn't conflict with Islamic doctrine and was in accordance with Islamic law. The West however was regarded as a corrupting influence.
The Muslim Brotherhood has a lot money, much of it in offshore accounts. It has its own intelligence service. The Muslim Brotherhood and other moderate Islamic groups has widespread support among doctors, lawyers, religious leaders, students and ordinary men and women. It is strongly supported financially by baazaris.
John Mintz and Douglas Farah wrote in the Washington Post : The Brotherhood -- or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, as it is known in Arabic -- is a sprawling and secretive society with followers in more than 70 countries. It is dedicated to creating an Islamic civilization that harks back to the caliphates of the 7th and 8th centuries, one that would segregate women from public life and scorn nonbelievers. In some nations -- Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Sudan -- the Brotherhood has fomented Islamic revolution. In the Palestinian territories, the Brotherhood created the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which has become known for its suicide bombings of Israelis. Yet it is also a sophisticated and diverse organization that appeals to many Muslims worldwide and sometimes advocates peaceful persuasion, not violent revolt. Some of its supporters went on to help found al Qaeda, while others launched one of the largest college student groups in the United States. For decades, the Brotherhood enjoyed the support of the government of Saudi Arabia and its oil billions, which helped the group expand in the United States. [Source: Washington Post , John Mintz and Douglas Farah, September 11, 2004]
Steve Coll wrote in the The New Yorker: “The Brotherhood was initially a religious-minded movement opposed to British colonial rule in Egypt; later, following Britain's withdrawal from the region, the Brotherhood's leaders continued their struggle against the secular, socialist Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, who took power in 1952. In his approach to the Brotherhood, Nasser alternated between periods of accommodation and brutal crackdowns. Some of the Brotherhood's organizers were forced into exile, and they began to form new chapters across the Muslim world. Their aim was to replace secular and nationalist Arab leaders with Islamic governments, and they often operated clandestinely. Today, the movement typically recruits its members from élite, well-educated families; its goals include the imposition throughout Muslim societies of sharia---law as set forth in the Koran---and the empowerment of Islamic scholars as cultural arbiters and dispensers of justice...Over the years, the Brotherhood has operated both in the open and in secret, through peaceful political campaigning and through support for terrorism. [Source: Steve Coll, The New Yorker, December 12, 2005]
