Monday, February 16, 2015

Obama's Ongoing Friendship with the Muslim Brotherhood

Michael L.

{Cross-Posted at the Elder of Ziyon and Jews Down Under.}

obamaIn a recent piece entitled, The Pathos of Jewish anti-Zionism, I referenced Obama administration support for the Muslim Brotherhood and wondered aloud how any Jewish person could possibly stand behind a president of the United States that offered moral, military, and financial support to an organization devoted to a genocidally anti-Semitic worldview and the restoration of the Caliphate?

The truth of the matter is that Jewish support for Barack Obama, given Obama's callous indifference toward anti-Semitism and support for the Muslim Brotherhood, is perhaps the greatest failure of American Jewry in many decades.  I have been considering how this happened for a number of years and have come to the conclusion that many American Jewish supporters of Barack Obama simply refuse to acknowledge Obama's support for the Brotherhood as support for the Brotherhood.

Just as Jewish Obama supporters do not care about his indifference toward rising levels of violent Muslim immigrant anti-Semitism in Europe, so they do not care about his support for the rise of political Islam, which he refuses to even so much as name.

This is, in my view, a dangerous failure to acknowledge that which is obvious, but I am very much hoping that there is now sufficient evidence wherein the obvious simply becomes undeniable.

Khaled Abu Toameh has an article for the Gatestone Institute entitled, U.S. Seen in Middle East as Ally of Terrorists.  In this article he argues that given Obama's support for the Muslim Brotherhood many Egyptians see the administration as an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood.

{Shocking, I know.}

He writes:
While the Egyptian government has been waging war on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic radical groups, the U.S. Administration and some Europeans are continuing to hamper efforts to combat terrorism.

Many Egyptians and moderate Arabs and Muslims were shocked to hear that the U.S. State Department recently hosted a Muslim Brotherhood delegation.
And, indeed, the U.S. State Department did, in fact, recently host a Muslim Brotherhood delegation thereby incurring the anger of the Egyptian government, but given Obama's disrespect for allies - and dislike of Israel - this is hardly surprising.

Lori Lowenthal Marcus, writing in the Jewish Press tells us:
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shokry said the explanation given by the State Department for meeting with former Muslim Brotherhood party leaders was “not understandable.”

Shoukry was responding to U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki’s statements during the daily briefing that a meeting by the delegation of former Freedom and Justice Party (Muslim Brotherhood’s political party) members with U.S. State department officials, arranged and paid for by Georgetown University was “routine.” 
The primary acts of Obama administration support for the Brotherhood consist of such "routine" recognitions.  By hosting the Brotherhood, they recognize it and thus legitimize it.   It is hard to imagine that anyone would think that when Obama administration officials legitimize an Islamist organization this somehow does not constitute support for that organization and, therefore, political Islam, more generally.

According to Toameh, a number of Egyptian columnists, along with the Egyptian government, have been highly vocal in their condemnation of Obama administration support for the Brotherhood.  One of these is Mohamed Salmawi.  Toameh writes:
"The U.S. Administration says it is combating these groups at home while it is supporting them abroad," Salmawi wrote. "This meeting has grave indications because it shows that Washington has not abandoned its policy of double standards toward Islamic terrorism.

Salmawi also took issue with the U.S. Administration for turning a blind eye to the hypocrisy and double talk of the Muslim Brotherhood. "One of the leaders of Muslim Brotherhood, for example, told the world that he welcomes the Jews of Israel," he added. "But this same leader announced in front of the Egyptian people that they should march in the millions to liberate Jerusalem from the occupation of the Jews. [Ousted President] Mohamed Morsi, before his election, described these Jews as descendants of apes and pigs. In English, the Muslim Brotherhood says one thing and in Arabic something completely different."
So, yes, the Obama administration does, in fact, support the Muslim Brotherhood despite the fact that the Brotherhood has called for the conquest of Jerusalem and, yet, American Jews still backed Barack Obama by about 70 percent in the last election.

The public legitimization of the Brotherhood, which Obama initially undertook during the famous (or infamous) 2009 Cairo speech, was perhaps the first public example of this "routine" legitimization.  Despite the wishes of former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, the Obama administration insisted upon Muslim Brotherhood attendance.  This suggested that political Islam is, for Barack Obama, a legitimate political movement in need of courting and cooperation.

The Brotherhood came to power in Egypt with the significant assistance of the Obama administration.  Obama demanded that Mubarak step down knowing full well that the Brotherhood was waiting in the wings.  When the Brotherhood came to power in a fraudulent election wherein Christians were sometimes prevented from voting at the point of a rifle, Obama still sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Cairo to ensure a smooth transition to an Islamist government.  Then, once in power, the Obama administration supplied this heinous genocidal regime with both financial assistance and heavy weaponry.

Our friend Alexi, however, has the raised the distinction between supporting a country and supporting a particular regime.  This is an important distinction to address and Alexi was absolutely right to raise the question.  The fact of the matter is that when Obama sent cash and Abrams tanks and F-16 fighter jets to Egypt he was giving that cash and weaponry to a regime that called for the conquest of Jerusalem.  It was the Brotherhood, not the Egyptian people, that received and then allocated these resources.  Those resources did not in any real way represent support for the Egyptian people, but were a means of bolstering the strength and prestige of the Islamist regime in Cairo.

Some people might argue that none of this was meant as support for the Brotherhood, per se, but actually represented support for the democratic forces sweeping the Middle East during the joyous Arab Spring.

The problem is that there were no democratic forces sweeping the Middle East during the misnamed "Arab Spring," unless you think of democracy as consisting of one man, one vote, one time.  Supporting democracy by supporting the Brotherhood would be akin to supporting democracy by supporting Adolph Hitler. The Brotherhood has an exceedingly long track record of terrorism and Jew hatred.  One of the founders of the organization, Sayid Qutb, even wrote a little book entitled, "Our Struggle with the Jews" which Richard Cohen describes in the Washington Post as "a work of unabashed, breathtakingly stupid anti-Semitism, one of the reasons the New York Review of Books recently characterized Qutb's views 'as extreme as Hitler's.'"

And, in fact, the Brotherhood supported the Nazis during World War II and gave refuge for many of them afterward, including the brutal Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who spent much of the war years as a guest of the German government in Berlin.

The real problem here is that Obama's Middle East policy, and particularly his policy toward political Islam, is entirely incoherent.  Obama seems to think that he can pick and choose which Islamists to support, which to ignore, and which to oppose, all based strictly on political considerations.

So, for example, Obama opposes al-Qaeda, but Obama had to oppose al-Qaeda due to the fact of 9/11.

The Brotherhood, as is well-known, however, is the parent organization of both al-Qaeda and Hamas, yet Obama certainly does not oppose the Brotherhood.  This, needless to say, raises the obvious question, how can one oppose a political organization with a revolting ideology, like al-Qaeda, while supporting its parent organization that holds to essentially the identical ideology?

The reason for this is because Obama is not in opposition to political Islam.

In fact, he cannot even bring himself to breathe the words "political Islam" or "radical Islam" or "Islamism," thus demonstrating political cowardice in the face of a real threat.

Finally, one cannot defeat an enemy without defining it, naming it, understanding it, and gaining public support for the effort.

This Obama refuses to do.

So many years after 9/11 - and as we see the spread of political Islam along with the attendant head-chopping, the genocide of minorities like the Yazidi, the burying of children alive, the burning of caged human beings doused with gasoline, and other such interesting examples of al-Sharia jurisprudence - one must wonder why?

Why is this president shielding political Islam from its richly deserved comeuppance and why did he tell us that the rise of this vile movement was something akin to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s?

Standing before the United Nations on May 19. 2011, Obama said this:
There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat.
If Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive to hear those words, he would never stop retching.

I know I haven't.

11 comments:

  1. dhonig continues to try to teach the unteachable and reach the unreachable.

    He's a good man, but he is wasting his time.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/16/1364773/-The-Jew-Rule-on-Daily-Kos

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    1. Yeah, I read that too.
      You see the dribble on the rec list? The Jewish BoJangles (DHG) is of course on it "tapping" away happily announcing that Obama is cutting intel to Israel.

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    2. The impotent anger of the Daily Kos antisemites is palpable.

      You get the feeling that they're just so generally beaten down at everything in life, that they'll be damned(!) if they're going to be told they have to give up their Jew-hatred, too.

      The reaction is completely predictable every time they're called out for it...

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    3. Yeah, that's a part of it, too.

      I'm typing quickly during Better Call Saul commercial breaks. ;)

      Be back in 45 minutes or so, to expand upon what I see...

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    4. Okay, so...

      Yes, their "fragile sense of self-worth" as regards bigotry is precisely the point.

      As a liberal, I get the frustration of being constantly kicked in the head by those who purport to represent us. Despite what the right likes to claim, the Democrats hardly stand up for those of us on the lower end of the economic spectrum.

      That leaves a bunch of us with choices to make.

      Jews are the exception when it comes to bigotry because we're now in a particular time on the identity politics spectrum when every group you can imagine will (quite rightly) call you out on your shit when you spew it, with the notable exception of one.

      At Daily Kos, you can rely upon your idiotic, one-dimensional anti-Israel view to explain most of the problems in the world, and spew all the classic antisemitic tropes you'd like in service of same, and at worst have fourteen people recommend your comments and maybe one call you out, or at 'best' have a kapo like David Harris-Gershon or 'Tamar' grant you cover, free and clear.

      Mike and I and so many others have been banned for pointing this out. You are on your way to joining us. Welcome, btw! :)

      But this is where we veer -

      "This is why they run circles to support people who hate LGBT community, Women, and people of other religions (except Judaism and Christianity - because in progressive's minds they deserve it)"

      Sure, they run cover for those who hate these people, but they don't do it openly. If they came out and spit straight hatred towards gay folks, the way they do toward Jews in the guise of "criticism of Israeli policies," they'd get destroyed.

      Our task is to kick the so-called "anti-Zionists" (read: antisemites) out of the Left tent, in the same way as every other ethnic, religious and sexual minority has so far managed to also kick them out.

      Most often, largely with the support of Jews. Does anybody need a reminder of who stood on the front lines with African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement? Or which group of folks is largely at, or near, the front in any such movement in all of our lifetimes?

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  2. There seems to be something good in the water of Egypt e.g. Sadat and now Sissi.

    As to Obama: I cannot say if his hatred for Jews is "koranical" nor do I know if he is a muslim, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that he whores for Islam.

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    1. Well put, "As to Obama: I cannot say if his hatred for Jews is "koranical" nor do I know if he is a muslim, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that he whores for Islam. "

      I totally agree with this!

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    2. President Obama is a Christian. There is no need to wonder.

      No matter what else one thinks of him, that much is clear.

      Nor should it matter, even if he wasn't.

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  3. Let's not overstate it, tho.

    dkos anti-Semitism is mainly passive-aggressive.

    dhonig is right.

    Many of them look at Copenhagen and then reflexively look toward Jerusalem.

    None of them look at Chapel Hill and then reflexively look toward Riyadh.

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  4. I don't pretend to know what Obama thinks. All I can point to is the world in the shape it is in. When discussing Obama's relationship to al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn who's guiding principals are the following, and I quote from their English website:

    "Allah is our objective; the Qur'an is the Constitution; the Prophet is our leader; jihad is our way; death for the sake of Allah is our wish."

    unquote (Ikwanonline)

    One must, as lawyers say "take your clients as you find them". That is, you defend them as they are not as you would wish them to be where it's convenient. And I don't know any better way to state how they are than they do with their own words. And yes of course, those 5 pillars that form the Ikhwan principals don't overtly, as do the Hamas charter and the PLO charter explicitly call for the extermination of all Jews. So a literal minded almost childlike affinity for the black letter text in Ikhwan statements can always smugly say "Well those things don't say anything about Jews what are you complaining about." But the historical and philosophical underpinnings point to 1300 years of race hatred and violence.

    You would have to be clinically retarded to think that political Islam vis a vis the Jews and the west in general is all peace and jasmine. While I don't believe Obama's the 'smartest guy in the room' I don't think he's a stupid man either., So what's left is either he's as deluded as Stalinst fellow travelers Lillian Hellman or Paul Robeson in the 1930's and 40's or, he's their tool.

    Pick one.

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    1. His tendency to kick friends while unceasingly trying to hug his opponents / enemies seems to indicate that he's of the naive dreamer variety.

      Sar Shalom summed it up well, I think, in his post here on that a few weeks ago.

      Add the SuperDuperEgo necessary to advance to the heights he's achieved in politics (particularly considering all that he's managed to overcome in being elected president of the United States as a Black man) and there you go.

      Agreed that he's certainly not the smartest man in the room, but he's surely no dummy either.

      At his core I believe he's the type of person who desperately wants you to see how right he is, and wants (needs?) you to agree with him. This, of course, doesn't work when dealing with enemies of humanity like Islamist fascists.

      Our misfortune was ultimately having this man as our leader at the worst possible time.

      He's a peace-time president who would have been great dealing with more conventional, reasonable threats like the Soviet Union. In zero-sum games with Islamic State types, he's badly overmatched, to put it kindly.

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