Khaled Abu Toameh
The Obama Administration is making a mistake by endorsing the Muslim Brotherhood as if it were made up of moderates or "good guys" just because they are not blowing things up.
What moderate Arabs and Muslims do not understand is the rush of the Barack Obama Administration to endorse extremist Islamic groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Muslim Brotherhood decision to run in the parliamentary elections under the banner of "Freedom and Justice" does not necessarily mean that the organization has changed its ideology.
Its credo was and remains: "Allah is our objective, the Quran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our way and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations." The organization believes the Quran and Sharia law (the "Justice" part of "Freedom and Justice") should be the basis for any Islamic government; that all Muslims should be unified under a Caliphate, and that its principles include "liberating Arabs and Muslims from foreign imperialism."
The Obama Administration seems deliberately to want to be unaware of "taqiyya" [dissimulation], a silent and therefore even more dangerous tactic advocated in Islam to achieve the strategic goal of soothing the infidels into submitting without their even realizing what they have submitted to until it is too late for them -- called "Stealth Sharia."
If anyone thinks that the Muslim Brotherhood will abandon jihad and extremism once its members come to power, they are living in an illusion.
Hamas did the same thing in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, when it contested the vote under the banner of Change and Reform. In Tunisia, the Islamists chose to run under the banner of Annahda [Renaissance], while in Morocco they hid behind the name Justice and Development.
The nice and attractive names that the Islamists choose for their parties are above all intended to fool Westerners into thinking that Muslim extremists do not pose a threat to non-Muslims. The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies will do everything to hide their true intentions from Western governments and people. But once they come to power, they reveal their true colors.
The US Administration, which has determined that the Muslim Brotherhood is probably not that bad after all, is most likely unaware of what happened in Cairo last week, when thousands of the organization's supporters chanted "death to the Jews" and vowed to wage jihad [holy war] against Israel.
At a rally co-sponsored by Al-Azhar University under the banner "The Friday for Supporting Al-Aqsa Mosque," Muslim Brotherhood supporters also chanted: "O Tel Aviv, the day of judgment has come!" and "We will march on Jerusalem and sacrifice millions of martyrs!"
According to Eldad Beck, an Arab affairs correspondent for the Israeli online newspaper Ynet, about 5,000 Egyptians participated in the event, held to mark the anniversary of the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine.
Mohammed Ahmed Tayeb, the imam of Al-Azhar Mosque, told the crowd that the "Al-Aqsa Mosque is currently under an offensive by the Jews. We shall not allow Zionists to Judaize Jerusalem."
The messages coming out of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt did not surprise most Arabs and Muslims who are familiar with the organization and its agenda.
Although Hamas won the elections in 2006 under the banner of Change and Reform, the movement has since not changed its ideology, and continues to call for the destruction of Israel. Only those who are naive would believe that Hamas would ever recognize Israel's right to exist.
In 2006, the Americans made the mistake of allowing Hamas to run unconditionally in the elections. Back then, Washington should have demanded that Hamas first recognize Israel's right to exist and the Oslo Accords, and renounce terrorism as a precondition for participating in the election.
Ten years earlier, Hamas boycotted the same election: it said the vote was being held under the Oslo Accords, which the movement does not recognize.
There is nothing that Washington can do to stop the Islamists from hijacking the "Arab Spring," but by endorsing the Muslim Brotherhood, the US Administration has facilitated the organization's ultimate goal of establishing an Islamic Caliphate.
Those who were chanting "death to the Jews" in Cairo also want to kill all "infidels," including Americans and Europeans.
On their way to achieving their goal, the Islamists will also kill the moderate Muslims -- whom they see as just a fifth column.
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