Is the Brotherhood a Threat?

12-09-2011

After the result of the first round of Egyptian Parliamentary elections, Islamists - including the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists - won an overwhelming majority of the votes. It’s led many to believe Egypt is on the road to an Islamic revolution that will profoundly change the largest Arab nation in the Middle East.

It’s alarming to Israelis that fear their more than 30-year treaty with Egypt is in jeopardy.

But Nicolas Kristof, with the New York Times, downplays the fear. He writes in his opinion piece that “So a bit of nervousness is fine, but let’s not overdo the hand-wringing. What’s historic in Egypt today is not so much the rise of any one party as the apparent slow emergence of democracy in the heart of the Arab world.”

You can read his entire piece here.

But a new translation of the book “Jihad Is the Way” by Mustafa Mashhur, the official leader of the Muslim Brotherhood from 1996 to 2002 by the Palestinian Media Watch paints a far more ominous and alarming portrait of the Islamic group than Kristof’s.

PMW says the central messages of that book are the following: 

  • Muslims are the “masters of the world”
  • The Islamic nation’s “rightful position … the teachers of humanity”
  • “There is no other option by Jihad for Allah
  • Fighting Israel is “Jihad against the criminal, thieving gangs of Zion”
  • Has the (Muslim) Brotherhood grown weary of the challenges, thrown down their guns and abandoned Jihad?!! No!”  

    You can read the full translation by PMW here.

    Mashhur’s book reveals the true goals of the Muslim Brotherhood and why many are genuinely concerned the “Arab Spring” is becoming an “Islamic Winter."

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