Andrew C. McCarthy
In Cairo last week, Hamas’s chief, Khaled Mashal, gave a fiery speech
calling for violent jihad against Israel. With approving nods from his
hosts — aides to Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader whom
Egyptians elected their president — Mashal exclaimed, “Resistance [ACM- "resistance" is the Islamist euphemism for "terrorism"],
not negotiation, is the path to the restoration of rights…. Nothing
will restore the homeland but jihad, the rifle, and self-sacrifice.”
Hamas, it is worth reminding ourselves, is the Palestinian branch of
the Muslim Brotherhood. It has long been a designated foreign terrorist
organization under U.S. law, and many sympathizers are serving long
prison sentences here for providing it with material support.
Nevertheless, Hamas leaders are now regular guests of the
Brotherhood-led Egyptian government, given Cairo as a platform for war
cries against our ally, Israel.
There is nothing new about Hamas’s ceaseless jihad against Israel,
about the Brotherhood’s assiduous support for that effort, or about
Hamas’s popularity among Egyptians. There is something new and extremely
disturbing about American efforts to support a regime that so ardently
backs Hamas. Yet, the Egyptian press reports that
the Obama administration is frantically working the phones to attempt
to persuade lawmkakers to unblock $450 million more in economic aid
(specifically, debt relief) that the president promised Morsi without
first clearing it with Congress.
Personally, I don’t understand why Congress makes any concessions to
the administration while the president directs his underlings to make
expenditures Congress opposes (e.g., $165 million for the white elephant
Thomson state prison in Illinois, where it is suspected Obama would
later transfer Gitmo detainees), or while the president makes recess
appointments when there is no recess, or while the president is in
violation of various congressional statutes. With impeachment rightly
reserved for truly heinous executive behavior, the power of the purse is
the main weapon the framers gave the people’s representatives for
reining in a lawless, imperial president. Congress ought to be slashing
the administration’s funding, not entertaining new demands.
But even if Congress won’t defend its institutional turf, why would
lawmakers even consider giving another dime to Egypt? The Muslim
Brotherhood is America’s enemy. Morsi came to power demanding the return
of the Blind Sheik — serving a life sentence in the U.S. for terrorism
offenses — to Egypt. Since he has been in power, the regime has failed
to protect our embassy, and its constituent assembly is currently
writing a sharia constitution that fails to protect the rights of women
and minorities. And material support to Hamas is Morsi’s official
policy.
Maybe we can’t stop Egypt from going down this path, but why on earth would we even think about paying for it?
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