Obama Reaches Out to the Muslim Brotherhood

The Obama administration is set to begin formal contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group dedicated in its own words to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within, and sabotaging its miserable house.”

This news came in a Reuters report Wednesday, quoting a “senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.” Why this official felt it necessary to speak on condition of anonymity is a mystery, given the fact that Barack Obama has never made a secret of his solicitude for the Muslim Brotherhood. Even though the Brotherhood was still outlawed in Egypt at that time, he made a point of inviting leaders of the group to attend his speech to the Islamic world in Cairo on June 4, 2009.

Not only that. Obama included the leader of a Muslim Brotherhood-linked group that had been named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case among the clerics giving a prayer during his inauguration ceremonies: Ingrid Mattson, then-president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), offered this prayer at the National Cathedral on Obama’s Inauguration Day – despite the fact that ISNA has admitted its ties to the Brotherhood. In fact, so overwhelming is the evidence of ISNA’s involvement with the Brotherhood and Hamas that the previous summer, federal prosecutors had rejected a request from ISNA to remove its unindicted co-conspirator status. Obama even sent his Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett to be the keynote speaker at ISNA’s national convention in 2009.

In light of all that, it is mystifying why the official opted to remain anonymous – surely he had no fear of incurring the wrath of anyone in the Obama high command by spilling these particular beans. Of course, he may have been mindful of how poorly this would play among those aware of the Brotherhood’s pro-Sharia, anti-Israel, anti-American agenda, and so he played up the pragmatic, realpolitik aspects of the decision: “The political landscape in Egypt has changed, and is changing,” he noted. “It is in our interests to engage with all of the parties that are competing for parliament or the presidency.”

The official added that the Obama administration would, in its talks with the Brotherhood, “continue to emphasize the importance of support for democratic principles and a commitment to nonviolence, and respect for minority and women’s rights in conversations with all groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Good luck with that. The Muslim Brotherhood, contrary to “intelligence” chief James Clapper’s ridiculous claim that it is “largely secular,” is dedicated to establishing an Islamic state in Egypt and implementing the Islamic law that has no room for democratic principles, uses violence against dissenters and miscreants, and tramples upon minority rights and women’s rights. Then there is the movement’s inveterate anti-Semitism: not only does the jihad terrorist group Hamas style itself as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine, but recently the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie said: “Allah has warned us the tricks of the Jews, and their role in igniting the fire of wars… and they labor hard to spread corruption on earth: and Allah does not love the spreaders of corruption.”

The spiritual father of the Muslim Brotherhood, the 84-year-old Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, recently returned to Cairo to be greeted by huge and rapturous crowds after the end of his fifty-year exile from the country. In January 2009, during a Friday sermon broadcast on Al-Jazeera, he prayed that Allah would kill all the Jews: “Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.” He also declared: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by [Adolf] Hitler.”

More mindful of the many pitfalls involved in this new course of action was Elliott Abrams, a former deputy national security adviser for Middle East affairs in the Bush administration. “It’s critical,” said Abrams, “that we make it very, very clear to Egyptians, if we are going to do a meeting, that we are no less opposed to the ideas they represent.”

That’s unlikely in the extreme during the presidency of Barack Obama. Contradicting widespread claims and wishful thinking that the Brotherhood has moderated its hardline stances, Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center pointed out that “the political landscape in Egypt may have changed since the end of the Mubarak regime, but the Brotherhood’s hatred of Jews and Israel has not changed at all. This seems like a sell out to the European position and I hope it is not a signal that the United States will acquiesce to Europe and begin talking to Hamas as well.”

Rabbi Hier added:

We should not be talking to an organization that can lay claim to being the world’s leading purveyor of anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews. Legitimizing the Muslim Brotherhood sends the wrong message that you can hate Jews, and still sit and talk with world leaders.

Unfortunately, that seems to be a message that Obama administration is entirely willing to send. Combine his warm stance toward the Brotherhood with his thinly-veiled hostility toward Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel in general, and Barack Obama’s inclinations are clear. He gave approval for the killing of Osama bin Laden and has pursued al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, but in repeated statements he has made clear that he considers himself to be pursuing a war against al-Qaeda alone. In other words, Barack Obama is not fighting against the global jihad as pursued by groups other than al-Qaeda, and certainly not against the Islamic supremacist imperative to impose Sharia on majority-Muslim states as well as to bring elements of it westward.

The U.S. is the poorer for it. Israel is the more vulnerable for it. Obama’s stance puts all free people in danger. Obama’s stance puts Americans in increased danger from the Brotherhood’s subversive activities stateside. November 2012 cannot come fast enough.