Terrorism Returns to Egypt, Will Sanity about Islamism Arrive in the West?

Summary: We see the beginnings of terrorist Islamist groups in Egypt again, with a government unable or unwilling to stop them. The violence will grow. At the same time, this development teaches us about the nature of Islam and Islamism, disproving both sides in the dominant Western debate.



By Barry Rubin



As I've predicted since February, a major consequence of the Egyptian revolution and the rise of radical Islamism there will be a return to the terrorism of the 1990s which destroyed the tourism industry; targeted Christians; murdered moderates and secularists; and killed government officials and bystanders.



Now a group has attacked two police stations in el-Arish. They:



"`Stormed in by the hundreds mounted on pickup trucks and motorcycles waving black flags, a symbol of Jihad,'" said local resident Mohamed Mahmoud. `The militants were heavily armed with machine guns, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades.'"



Where are these weapons going to be coming from? Arms' smugglers allowed to operate without the restrictions of the old regime; politically sympathetic or well-bribed soldiers turning over equipment.



But, of course, CNN misses the point. Those responsible, it reports, are, "Takfir-wal Higra, a group sympathetic to al Qaeda's goal of establishing an Islamic Caliphate." Actually, that group originated in Egypt long before Usama bin-Ladin began his political activity. And in Egypt, terrorist Islamists come out of the Muslim Brotherhood, demanding faster and more extreme tactics. We will be seeing a lot of such people in the coming months and years.



Read it all

Almost One Year After Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Declared Jihad on America and Revolution for Egypt the U.S. Establishment Still Doesn't "Get It"

By Barry Rubin

Wow, time flies when you’re having revolution. Almost a year ago I wrote an article entitled, “Muslim Brotherhood Declares War on America. Will America Notice?” The answer was “no.”

Four years ago I made a detailed analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood that explained“The banner of the Islamist revolution in the Middle East today has largely passed to groups sponsored by or derived from the Muslim Brotherhood.” I pointed out the differences—especially of tactical importance—between the Brotherhood groups and al-Qaida or Hizballah, but also discussed the similarities. This exposure so upset the Brotherhood that it put a detailed response on its official website to deny my analysis.

Last September I read a speech by the new head (supreme guide) of the Muslim Brotherhood. I was astonished. The speech represented a major new escalation of Brotherhood rhetoric beyond what I’d seen before. The basic analysis is that America was weak, the Egyptian regime was weak, and so now was the time to go to jihad and overthrow both.

And since then that's what they've been doing.

Read it all:

http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/08/08/almost-one-year-since-egypt%e2%80%99s-muslim-brotherhood-declared-jihad-on-america-and-revolution-for-egypt-the-u-s-establishment-still-doesnt-get-it/

Norway As Example: It's Forbidden to Discuss How Political Apologists for Terror-Using Groups Unintentionally Increase Terrorism

Note: This article appeared in the Jerusalem Post in response to recent events. I hope this is the last time I address the issue. If you are going to forward or post a copy please use this one as it has a number of small improvements and is not cut.



It is available in Norwegian at http://wp.me/p1mneq-6a9 Scroll down past the English version. I have not been able to check this translation personally.



Before I begin I want to make five points absolutely clear:



1. I was one of the first people in the world to write condemning the action in Norway as terrorism and as committed by a right-winger. Therefore--and based on my career of 35 years including 30 years working on counterterrorism--it should be clear that I would never endorse the murder of dozens of people. The irony is that a plea to fight terrorism by not granting it rewards was distorted into a pro-terrorist position!



2. A large portion of the Norwegian mass media has repeatedly stated that I endorsed the killings and called the kids at the camp terrorists. This is a lie. False quotes were attributed to my article. To my best knowledge, nobody in Norway tried to establish the truth or report fairly.



3. No Norwegian media--indeed no reporter from anywhere in the world--made any attempt to interview me on this issue and find out what I thought and what I wrote. Imagine, this is the biggest story in Norway and nobody contacted me at all.



4. The Jerusalem Post never discussed this issue with me nor contacted me to discuss the issue and hear my position. I have written for this newspaper for about 30 years without a single controversy arising before.



5. We have arrived at the strange situation in which the Norwegian media and apparently the Norwegian government considers me to be "pro-terrorist" but does not consider Hamas (and a number of other groups one could name) to be "pro-terrorist."



What explains this kind of thing--deliberate lies, deceitful reporting, disinterest in truth, disinterest in fairness? Answer: The conversion of the public debate and media into propaganda exercises in which (ironically, McCarthyist) witchhunts are conducted and those entrusted with the sacred pursuit of truth and accuracy use their positions to spread lies, incitement, and indoctrination.



This has been going on now for some years but there's nothing like experiencing something first-hand to comprehend it well. I now hope to get back to work as an analyst of international affairs and especially of the Middle East.

Foreign Minister Store with Hamas Prime Minister Haniya: Smiles at Hamas, Frown at Israel. Deny Being an Enabler of Terrorism. Norwegian media accuses me--but not Hamas--of supporting terrorism. Haniya on US. assassination of Usama bin Ladin, “Of course we condemn the…killing of a Muslim jihad fighter….We pray for Allah to cover him with His mercy, next to the prophets, the righteous, and the martyrs."

A Case Study from Norway:

It Is Forbidden to Discuss How Political Enablers of Terrorist Groups Unintentionally Encourage Terrorism Without Being Labelled A Terrorist



By Barry Rubin



“I do not understand Norway’s position, and I say that as a friend of Norway. If they shoot, if they fire rockets, why doesn’t Norway believe that they are terrorists? What else do they need to do? Let us not forget that Norway and the other Scandinavian countries called in Yasir Arafat and said: `Iif you want a deal, you must first renounce terrorism. You must recognize the state of Israel, and you must commit yourself to peace.’ Why is all this forgotten? What is the difference between the PLO at that time and Hamas today?” --President Shimon Peres, May 2011



We want Palestine in its entirety—so there will not be any misunderstandings. If our generation is unable to achieve this, the next one will, and we are raising our children on this. Palestine means Palestine in its entirety, and Israel cannot exist in our midst…. We liberated Gaza through resistance. We want to conduct resistance in the West Bank as well." -- Hamas leader Mahmud Zahhar, July 2011, a few days before members of Norway’s ruling party expressed enthusiasm for helping Hamas. .



Ironically, the reaction to my article, “The Oslo Syndrome,” proved its thesis, the same point as the one President Shimon Peres made. If terrorism is empowered, terrorism is more likely to occur. That uncontroversial point has been blown up into something controversial by deceit.



The Norwegian government and media establishment wants no honest discussion of these issues. Instead, my article was misrepresented in order to stir up a frenzy that closed ears and shut eyes to what I was saying. Indeed, the Norwegian newspaper falsely claimed that I had endorsed the terrorist attack there.



How’s that for constructive dialogue and healing?



The blog “Israel Matzav” sums up my position very well:



“Rubin said that this terror attack, committed by a ‘normal Norwegian boy’ [not my words] ought to make Norwegians do some introspection about their government's support for terror organizations like Hamas. Is Norway giving its youth the wrong message through its support for Hamas? Why is Norway not even willing to ask itself that question?”



And the Norwegian reaction is to reiterate--as the ambassador portrayed his country’s view--that there is a rational reason to murder Israeli children (“occupation,” despite the fact that Israel has withdrawn from all of the Gaza Strip, much of the West Bank, and indicated its readiness to accept a Palestinian state eleven years ago) but not to murder Norwegian children. In other words, one can only discuss the evil Norwegian terrorist in the parameters laid down by the Norwegian left. One can talk endlessly about how his specific ideology--right-wing, allegedly Christian, and Islamophobic--but not the way he fits into a much wider pattern of rising terrorism in general.



I didn’t write about the content of his ideology but about his choice of strategy on the basis of my three decades’ of scholarly study about terrorism. Why did the Norwegian terrorist think that killing people would help—not hurt—his cause? Because like terrorists around the world he sees other groups that use terrorism succeed politically, build a mass base of support, and gain sympathy for their cause despite their methods.



Second, nobody else apologizes for criticizing Israel in the harshest terms after terrorist attacks, something I did not do to Norway. No newspaper in the world to my knowledge apologized for the terrible things written on its pages about the United States after September 11.



The deputy foreign minister and foreign minister of Norway, who both attacked me, have never criticized Hamas or Hizballah by name. Last May, Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre explained, “We condemn organizations that are involved in terrorism, but Norway has considered the situation as such that having lists where we put an organization and call it a terrorist organization will not serve our purposes.”



Obviously, if Hamas was named as a terrorist group then cabinet ministers can’t have its leaders to tea. But by not naming it, they are saying: You can commit hundreds of acts of terror and it will cost you nothing politically. But if Israel responds, for example, by counterattacking into the Gaza Strip, we will condemn Israel.



Yes, this is a policy that encourages terrorism and makes it look successful: it wins sympathy for the cause and antagonism toward the victims. But while Norway won’t criticize terrorist groups by name, its officials and media are unrestrained in attacking Israel.



Alan Dershowitz has written from personal observation that in Norway, “Anti-Semitism doesn't even mask itself as anti-Zionism.” And this behavior is carried on by public institutions and media.



Former Prime Minister Kare Willoch criticized President Barack Obama for appointing Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff because he was “Jewish.” Nor the author Jostein Gaarder who wrote an op-ed in Aftenposten entitled, “God’s Chosen People” at a time when three Israeli soldiers had been kidnapped by Hizballah and a war was on, describing Judaism as “an archaic national and warlike religion.” Apology?



In 2008, a Norwegian comedian said on national television, “I would like to wish all Norwegian Jews a Merry Christmas - no, what am I saying! You don't celebrate Christmas, do you!? It was you who crucified Jesus." Apology? Last year the minister of finance spoke at a largely Islamist-organized anti-Israel rally. Apology? A person who has served as a Foreign Ministry official remarked in 2008 that she occasionally wished the UN would send “precision-guided missiles against selected Israeli targets.” Apology?



But I never said and I’m not saying now that a terrorist attack took place in Norway because of its anti-Israel policies or atmosphere. Nor am I saying that Norway “supports” terrorism itself, that it applauds the murder of civilians elsewhere. What I’m saying--as nobody has publicly acknowledged in Norway—is that to show terrorists they will get more sympathy than Israel, to reward a group like Hamas, to say that terrorism can be ignored if directed against the “proper” people is to increase the overall level of terrorism against Israel and in the world, including in Norway itself.



You’ve never heard of Samira Munir and Norway’s establishment has swept her story away. She was a Norwegian politician of Pakistani origin who fought for women’s rights and against sharia law. She was found dead in November 2004, supposedly a suicide but seeming far more likely to have been a terrorist murder. She had received daily death threats by phone and walking down the street. Might this act, whose perpetrators were never punished, indicate that some people think they can commit terrorism, get away with it, and suffer no political damage?



If others who have extremist views and/or mental disorders see every day that terrorism produces political advantage and sympathy for those who commit it they are more likely to commit terrorism. If groups see their terrorism is no barrier to being invited to Norway and to have lunch with cabinet ministers while their enemies’ self-defense countermeasures will be condemned and vilified they are more likely to adopt terrorism as a strategy.



The underlying concept of the Norwegian response is that Norway is a country that isn’t supposed to have terrorism committed against it. But Israel is a country that deserves to have terrorism committed against it. My point is that neither country “deserves” to have this happen. That doesn’t mean Norway is guilty or should be punished or that an evil terrorist attack is justified. No, it means that Norway should be more consistently and universally against giving terrorists victories—even though it does so by ignoring their terrorism.



We are now approaching the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States. There were those then, including in Norway, who said the United States had it coming and the attack was due to its policies. There are always those—including in Norway—who say that Israel has it coming and the attack is due to its policies.



My view is the precise opposite. I’m saying about Norway precisely the same thing I said about the United States after September 11: the attack proves the need to take a tougher stance against terrorism and against all terrorist groups. If the world thinks al-Qaida won and its attack brought political gains, then there would be more terrorism. As it happened, there was tough action against al-Qaida itself but other terrorist groups concluded that terrorism worked, increased their operations, and did reap political rewards.



The Norwegian government and left-wing media wants there to be two sectors in the world: those immune not only from criticism but from serious discussion of their actions, as compared with those who can be lied about with impunity, have hatred incited against them, and then must apologize for not staying in their place as second-class people with second-class rights to express their views.



What I wrote in the “Oslo Syndrome” is that people who accept rationales for terrorism and reward those movements politically increase terrorism. Equally, those who accept double standards, slanderous lies (without apology) about themselves in the media of other countries, and the consorting of those countries with groups that want to exterminate them only increase that behavior, too.



Here are some good responses to the situation:



http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2011/08/norways-deputy-foreign-minister-appeals.html



A collection of antisemitic cartoons in the Norwegian media:

http://www.israelwhat.com/anti-semtic-cartoons-in-the-mainstream-media/



Alan Dershowitz article (free registration required)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704474804576222561887244764.html



A long analysis of Norway’s actions

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/07/sad-song-of-norway-its-antisemitic.html



Peres and Store quotes: http://www.newsinenglish.no/2011/05/06/peres-criticizes-norway-on-hamas/

Zahhar quote, http://www.memri.org/clip_transcript/en/3051.htm



Haniya quote http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/2910.htm



A fascinating story about a Norwegian-Arab politician from Syria who has renounced her former antisemitism and become a critic of Norway's policy from that perspective.

http://blogs.jpost.com/content/more-tolerance-norway

The Incredibly Significant Missing Element in Egypt's Revolution

By Barry Rubin

As I always say, the most important stories about the Middle East--that really explain the region--are right there on the surface but are nonetheless neglected. Here's one: there has not been a single, not a single, demonstration in Egypt against political Islamism.

Think about it. There is a powerful Muslim Brotherhood, openly seeking state power and Egypt's fundamental transformation into an Islamist state. Then there are the Salafists--a new label applied to even more radical Islamist groups--that were in the past simply called by the name of the individual organization. There used to be two major ones. Why the use of "Salafist" now? Because there are too many to count.

And yet, despite this threat, not only to Egypt as a whole but daily life, there has been no organization of a demonstration, or a public campaign, or a Facebook campaign against the factor likely to produce a new dictatorship.

Read more

Answering Readers’ Questions on Libya, Middle East Democracy and On Islam

By Barry Rubin

I answer reader's questions on:

--Why is the Obama Administration reluctant to go to Congress over the war in Libya?

--What should the U.S. government be doing about democratization in the Arab world?

--How do you tell a moderate Muslim?

--Is there such a thing as moderate Muslims?

Read it all

Holland: Professional “Moderate Muslim” Turns Out to be Radical, Pro-Terrorist Jihadist

By Barry Rubin

Mohamed Azahaf, a 28-year-old immigrant from Morocco, was hired by the east Amsterdam district to build trust between Muslims and non-Muslims there. But a journalist did some careful research to discover he's a supporter of Usama bin Ladin, said Muslim women who didn’t wear “proper” clothing weren't real Muslims, and even issued death threats against those criticizing Islamic doctrine.

Read more

Here In One Sentence is What Obama Doesn't Understand About the Middle East

This article is published on PajamasMedia.

By Barry Rubin

Here's the sentence:

The changes in the region are producing more extremism, not more moderation.

That applies to attitudes toward America and Israel as well as on internal social issues.
Rachi Ghanouchi, head of Tunisia's Islamist movement--a man long portrayed as a moderate in the West--just publicly came out and called for Israel's destruction. And what does Voice of America tell us and the Arabs? That Ghanouchi is a moderate who doesn't want an Islamist state! Your tax dollars at work. What does CBS News tell us? That the Islamist party denounced the killing of a priest. Obviously very tolerant people.

Of course, the Tunisian Islamists are far weaker than those in Egypt. Still, the West is deluding itself in thinking they are moderate.

Yet let's listen--thanks to MEMRI--to what the VOA and CBS producers' counterparts in the Arab world is saying. In an article written for a Qatari and a Jordanian newspaper, entitled "Israel Is Surely Temporary," Samir al-Hijjawi says

"It's time for Israel to go... It's time for the end of the great lie... It's time [for Israel] to go because the regimes protecting [it]... are toppling one by one." He added that the recent  protests on Israel's borders prove the Palestinians and Arabs will never relinquish all of Palestine because it is sacred Muslim territory.

I'll bet that every producer and pretty much every staff member of al-Jazira--the station Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has recommended as accurate--agrees.
Get it? For Obama, the "Arab Spring" means moderation and democracy. To most Arabs and Muslims, it represents a resurgence of Islamism and nationalism, the prelude for getting rid of Israel and U.S. influence in the region.

I'd be bothered less if Obama acknowledges that but claimed that his proteges would win. The fact that he has zero percent understanding of the threat is the prelude to disaster. The fact that almost all Western newspapers and television news operations think the same way as Obama makes the situation even worse.

In September, Obama’s Middle East Policy Will Collapse

This article is published on PajamasMedia.

By Barry Rubin

Prediction: In September, President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy blows up in his (and our) face(s). It’s totally obvious and yet no one is focusing on it.

I’m not referring to the Palestinian Authority’s bid for unilateral independence at the UN. I’m referring to the Egyptian parliamentary election.

It is totally obvious that in that election Egypt will elect a radical, anti-American, hate-Israel parliament which will then write the country’s new constitution. This is a turning point in Middle East history. And Obama is unaware of it. Quite the contrary, he declared in his State Department speech that everything is great with the “Arab spring.” Nothing can go wrong. It is the expression of a yearning for prosperity and freedom.

The Arab spring began when a frustrated man in Tunisia set himself on fire.

It will now move to the new phase: the whole Middle East will be set on fire.

Is that alarmist? Not at all, except in the sense that when one sees a fire he sets off the fire alarm.

Don’t be distracted by the question of whether Islamists will have a majority or the even narrower question of whether the Muslim Brotherhood will have a majority.

There WILL be a radical majority, there MIGHT be an Islamist majority, there won’t be a Muslim Brotherhood majority but it will ALMOST CERTAINLY be the largest single party.

Why do I say this? Well, Amr Moussa, who isn’t an Islamist and is Egypt’s most popular and important Egyptian politician says so.

There is no sign—no sign—that the moderates are organizing serious parties. Instead of getting to work, they’re complaining. Meanwhile four radical, anti-American, passionately anti-Israel forces are organizing:

--The Muslim Brotherhood, which should get one-third or more of the seats and is contesting half of them, obviously in the districts where it has the best chance of winning.

--Smaller and even more radical Islamist parties (referred to as Salafists) who could form agreements with the Brotherhood so that they won’t hurt each other’s chances.

--Left-wing neo-Marxist parties.

--Radical nationalists.

There will probably be a number of independents who will be courted and won over by one of these blocs.

Imagine the day after that election. What will the mass media say? What will the American politicians say?

--That they were wrong about the Egyptian revolution and the Muslim Brotherhood?

--That by helping to bring down the old regime, U.S. policy foisted a disaster on the region and on its own interests?

--That by celebrating how great the “Arab Spring” is and refusing to acknowledge the real threats and problems, Obama made catastrophic errors.

--That his policy has led to many advances for America’s enemies?

--That Israel is in a far worse strategic situation and certainly can’t and shouldn’t make any more concessions?

--That the Islamists are emboldened and thus both Hamas and the radicals who run Fatah are taking an even harder line?

--That the loss of faith in America by its Arab allies is now undeniably clear and they are scrambling to make their own deals with Iran and other extremists?

--That there is a real possibility of a war in which Egypt either joins directly or backs Hamas? Imagine, Egypt stays “neutral” but nobody stops thousands of Egyptian volunteers from crossing into Gaza to fight or even across the Egypt-Israel border to launch terror attacks?

--What will the Obama Administration do if in practice Egypt tears up the Israel-Egypt peace treaty even if it pretends that it isn’t doing so?

--People are insisting that if Hamas in practice becomes part of the Palestinian Authority that the United States, and certainly Congress, will cut off aid. But what will happen when the Obama Administration does everything possible to prevent an aid cut-off and nothing possible to pressure the PA into changing its policy or behavior?

These are not speculations. These things WILL happen. Nobody in the United States or Europe is seriously discussing these scenarios and what should be done about them.

And I didn’t even mention the Egyptian presidential elections or, for that matter:

--An emboldened Turkish Islamist government if it wins the June 12 elections the:re,

--A Lebanese government controlled by Syria and its clients, especially Hizballah, if it ever gets a new prime minister and cabinet installed in that country.

--The survival of an anti-American Syrian government that has murdered hundreds of its citizens and will be arresting and torturing thousands, in part due to the Obama Administration's failure to try to overthrow it?

--The sight of Iran ever closer to nuclear weapons and admissions that the sanctions had only a limited effect?

These are not far-out scenarios. All of them have a 90 percent or more likelihood of happening.

I don’t want to take your time here for a history lesson but consider precedents:

--1952. Radical regime takes power in Egypt. U.S. realizes the threat by April 1955 but then saves the regime from being overthrown by Britain, France, and Israel in 1956. Result: Violence, disruption, and anti-American problems in the region for decades.

--1979. Radical regime takes power in Iran. U.S. policy makes a mess in dealing with the revolutionary crisis. Americans taken hostage, revolutionary Islamism flourishes, thirty plus years of violence, September 11, Islamist movement still growing. By the way, why does not one of the hundreds of "experts" on television and in the mass media remember that the Iranian revolution began after President Jimmy Carter urged reform on the shah and ended with the United States calling on the shah to go away? Remind you of anything?

September 2011 will be another of those moments. Mark that on your calendar. On the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the United States will be watching the triumph of the ideology and movement--not Usama bin Ladin, of course, but his smarter counterparts--in much of the Middle East.

PS: Here's an excellent guide to Egypt's political parties so far which proves my point . Note that there isn't a single serious moderate party. Amr Mousa isn't forming a party while Muhammad ElBaradei, Obama's favorite, isn't doing anything but complain. There is a "Facebook party." So far it has 1000 "likes." Egypt has about 85 million people.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

President Obama’s “Reset” of Relations with Muslims and a Massacre in Pakistan

This article is published on PajamasMedia.

By Barry Rubin

There’s something particularly poignant about news that at least 80 people were killed in Charsadda, Pakistan, by a Taliban attack on a police training center there. It isn’t that the event was so unique—except for one feature—but it is a suitable symbol of the situation in the Muslim-majority world today and how messed up is the Western perception of that part of the world.

The unique aspect is that the attackers said they are taking revenge for the killing of Usama bin Ladin by the United States.

And so as Americans cheer, 80 Pakistani families are in mourning. Let me quickly add that I do not blame the United States for this new mass murder. The crime is on the terrorists’ head. Nor do I believe the United States should not have killed bin Ladin. Not at all.

But this is a teachable moment so let’s summarize the lessons.

--Terrorism goes on. The death of one man or even of one organization won’t end it.

--If the United States had not killed bin Ladin on that particular day, in that place, or in that way, the Charsadda attack would have happened anyway. Thus, terrorists use specific events as excuses to do what they would have done anyway.

--Pakistan, albeit not to its credit, had nothing to do with the killing. In fact, major elements in the government protected bin Ladin while even more of the regime opposed the U.S. attack. Terrorists don't kill people because their victims are "guilty" nor do they need a "good reason" for murder. Their reason is the attempt to stage a revolutionary transformation of their society which they believe is mandated by the will of God and also would give them wealth and power.


--The main cause of terrorism is not America (or Israel, or any other country) killing terrorists but revolutionary Islamism’s attempts to seize state power or of those revolutionary Islamists (and their allies) already in power (see Iran, Syria, Hamas in Gaza, Hizballah in Lebanon, and perhaps soon the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt?) to overthrow neighbors.

--These policemen were targets not because they were oppressive instruments of capitalism or imperialism but because the revolutionaries want to destroy order so they can operate in a situation of anarchy which they hope to replace with their own rule.

--Most of the victims of terrorism are Muslim but those who proclaim their love of Muslims and of Third World people (the Western left and most Muslim activists there) couldn’t care less about these thousands of killings. Their only interest is to blame them on America, Israel, the West, or Islamophobia. In fact, they attempt to interfere with the battle against the terrorists and revolutionary Islamists, thus leading to the death of more Muslims.

--Revolutionary Islamism uses terrorism because it is a reflection of the movement’s ultimate totalitarian and repressive aims.

--If revolutionary Islamism was just a heretical caricature of Islam then no Muslims would follow it. Why did millions of Iranians support the Islamic Republic? Why has Hizballah come to dominate the Lebanese Shia community? Why will millions of Egyptians vote for Muslim Brotherhood candidates? The reason is that revolutionary Islamism is a "legitimate" interpretation of Islam based on its texts and traditions. But it is not the only, or "best," or most beneficial (for Muslims and others) interpretation. To deny that Islamism is derived from Islam won't convince any Muslims because they know better. This is a battle over politics and interpretation, not "Islamophobia," a concept largely created by Islamists for their own benefit.

--Relatively moderate Arab governments are not just using the threat of revolutionary Islamism to stay in power (although they do that also) but as a reflection of a very real danger to their countries and societies. Whatever one thinks of the Mubarak regime, a Brotherhood regime would be worse. In contrast, it is ridiculous to protect the Assad regime in Syria because it is an ally of revolutionary Islamists, helping them to murder people in Iraq, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon.

--Any true friend of Muslims would want the revolutionary Islamists defeated and the regimes supporting them overthrown. Such a person would join the fight against not only al-Qaida but also Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, Syria, and the Taliban.

--Most of the obsessive demonization of Israel today does not spring from some humanitarian impulse but is orchestrated by revolutionary Islamists and their Western allies (witting or otherwise) to commit genocide on Israeli Jews, expel or oppress Palestinian Christians, and impose a totalitarian state on Palestinians.

--Until Western leaders understand the above principles, their policies will not only fail they will be counterproductive for the interests of both their own countries and millions of Muslims, who do not want to be ruled by revolutionary Islamism.

Now here's an interesting question. Suppose the above list of propositions was submitted to leading politicians, policymakers, journalists, and academic experts, how many of these points would they accept as obvious and how many totally reject? If this list was given to average people how many of these points would they say that they've never heard expressed by their mass media or leaders?

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

My Interview on Bin-Ladin, al-Qaida, and Current Developments

My interview on the significance of the Usama bin-Ladin killing, al-Qaida, the real threat, Islamism, and current developments.

Bin Laden's Posthumous Fans

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By Barry Rubin

As so often happens, a peripheral issue has taken over the Western debate regarding the killing of Usama bin Laden. Whether or not the U.S. government releases a photo of the body isn't so important. If bin-Laden isn’t dead let him prove it by sending a video to al-Jazira. The issue is whether or not killing him was a good thing.

As for photos, those who believe that bin Laden isn't dead won't be convinced by photos. Ironically, many of them will simultaneously say that the United States didn't kill bin Laden but the fact that the United States killed bin Laden is a crime for which revenge should be taken.

We should have learned this from September 11, since many say that al-Qaeda wasn't responsible and it was done by the U.S. government and Israel while, at the same time, saying that it was an operation that made Muslims and Arabs feel proud and America deserved it.

Welcome to the Middle East!

Today--and for some years now--people in the Middle East haven't hated America because of its policies so much as defining whatever it does as hateful because America is already an enemy.  If you don't want revolutionary Islamists to take over countries, repress all freedom, suppress women, wipe Israel off the map, and expel all Western influence from the region then you are their enemy. You can be a weak, contemptible enemy or a strong bullying enemy but that's about the extent of your choice.

The reaction to the killing of UBL takes place in this context, Those Islamists and radical nationalists who saw bin Laden as a rival in life are finding him a useful martyr in death. Again, the issue is not whether bin Laden is dead but whether the United States was bad in killing him.

So far Hamas, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the highest Muslim cleric in Egypt, and Western favorite phony moderate Tariq Ramadan have all basically endorsed UBL as a great guy, a real martyr, and the victim of an evil United States.

The al-Aqsa Brigades of Fatah also apparently said so though it quickly withdrew the statement when it made the public relations’- conscious Palestinian Authority leadership uncomfortable. Yet the idea that this is just another American atrocity--one more reason to hate the United States--is a powerful force among Palestinians and also in public opinion in Egypt and Jordan.

And so the killing of UBL will enter the long list of U.S. policies for which America is disliked by many Muslims and Arabs in particular. There is a lesson here: whatever the United States does will be criticized because America as a great power, a civilization, a set of policies, and a presence internationally is hated by many, especially by revolutionary Islamists.

Consider the very “moderate” and sophisticated Mr. Ramadan, or perhaps I should say Professor Ramadan since he’s currently at Oxford University and Notre Dame wants to hire him. That’s pretty good for the grandson of a Nazi collaborator and the son of an agent working for a Nazi collaborator (Amin al-Husaini, the mufti of Jerusalem).

Not only did Ramadan criticize the killing of UBL but also called the burial at sea “against all the Islamic rituals.” Well, was bin Laden behind the September 11 attacks, Ramadan replies: "We don't know. Nobody knows—even the Americans." So much for moderation.

The killing poses a complex issue for Iran, Syria, and Hizballah. Iran is harboring scores of al-Qaeda leaders but the Tehran government—and also Hizballah—are Shia Muslims, a group that bin Laden despised. So no tears will be shed though perhaps some anti-Americanism can be stirred up in the Sunni Arab world by Iran.

Syria worked closely with al-Qaida in Iraqi terrorism but Damascus has also blamed al-Qaeda for internal attacks (ranging from possible regime hoaxes to democratic demonstrations) and so it isn’t well placed to cheer UBL now.

Regarding Pakistan, it has been an open secret—even published in the mass media—that the Pakistani government has sponsored terrorism and collaborated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Yet the U.S. government continued to pour money into the country.

Consider the murderous attack on Mumbai, India that took hundreds of hostages and killed so many people in cold blood. The group that conducted it operates from Pakistan with the knowledge of the authorities there. That government refused to cooperate with investigation or to extradite terrorists. We’re now supposed to be surprised that bin Laden was sheltering there?

In an official press release, the Pakistani army simultaneously claims credit for killing UBL and criticizes the United States for doing so. An official statement from the chief of staff of Pakistan’s army states:

“[We have] made it very clear that any similar action, violating the sovereignty of Pakistan, will warrant a review on the level of military / intelligence cooperation with the United States.

“The Corps Commanders were informed about the decision to reduce the strength of US military personnel in Pakistan to the minimum essential.

“As regards the possibility of similar hostile action against our strategic assets, the Forum reaffirmed that, unlike an undefended civilian compound, our strategic assets are well protected and an elaborate defensive mechanism is in place.”

So the U.S. killing of bin Laden is a cowardly attack on “an undefended civilian compound;” if the United States tries something like that again the Pakistani army will fight America; and the Americans are to be punished by expelling some of their personnel.

That’s quite a highly subsidized ally you have there!

Speaking of allies, a lot of the European media coverage revolved around whether the U.S. government broke international law by killing UBL. See previous paragraph.

And, once again, let me point out that al-Qaeda is a terrorist threat but not a strategic threat. The real problem is with revolutionary Islamists: Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, Syria, and the Muslim Brotherhood. If U.S. policy goes soft on these groups—even helping them at times—terrorism, anti-Americanism, and instability are going to get worse.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist for PajamasMedia at http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org/. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

Bin Laden's Death Creates Teachable Moments about the Middle East

This article was published on PajamasMedia. The text is provided here for your convenience.

DOROTHY: “I thought you said she was dead.”
GLINDA: “That was her sister--the Wicked Witch of the East. This is the Wicked Witch of the West. And she's worse than the other one was.”
--“The Wizard of Oz”

By Barry Rubin

It's astounding that Hamas, Fatah al-Aqsa Brigades, and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood all issued pro-bin Laden statements. They didn't have to do it. He was no friend of theirs. Yet out of Islamic solidarity, anti-Western hatred, and perhaps fear that it could happen to them they did. It's extraordinary these groups could say such statements and not be totally discredited in American eyes for taking the side of the September 11 terrorist leader.


Ding-dong, bin-Ladin’s dead. The Wicked Terrorist of the West is no more. But there are plenty more around.

In fact, several events are already proving it. The question is: Does the U.S. government, its European friends, and the Munchkins of their intellectual elite know a wicked witch when they see one?

Even the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades of Fatah—the ruling party in the “moderate” Palestinian Authority (PA) of which “President” Mahmoud Abbas is a leader (Abbas himself didn't criticize the operation)—cheered bin Laden. In other words, the militia of a group that has received lavish U.S. funding has now endorsed the September 11 attacks! Will the mass media notice this point? Will Congress?

To make the story even more interesting, Palestinian Media Watch pointed out that the Palestinian news agency edited out that message in its English-language site. What a marvelous case study of the usual practice of expressing extremism in Arabic for their own audience and moderation in English for the Western journalists, policymakers, and “experts.”

The statement is truly remarkable. Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Brigades didn’t owe bin Laden anything. It is supposedly a secular-oriented group and has never cooperated with al-Qaeda. Yet so great is the power of radical Islamism, anti-Americanism, and pure hatred of the “other” that this group—which easily could have remained silent—couldn’t help itself.

The statement reads—and note the use of the word “jihad” from a Fatah group:

“The Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Brigades mourned Tuesday the death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, following his assassination Sunday by American troops in Pakistan.

“His death, a statement said, `won't stop our Jihad mission against injustice and occupation….The Islamic nation was shocked with the news that bin Laden had been killed by the non-believers."

He left a generation who follows the education he gave in Jihad, the statement continued. The fighters in Palestine and around the world who have lost their leaders did not stop their mission and will continue in the tutelage of their masters."

"We say to the American and Israeli occupier: The umma, [Islamic nation] which produced leaders who changed the course of history through their Jihad and their endurance is a nation that is capable of supplying an abundance of new blood into the arteries of the resistance and is capable of restoring the glory of Islam and the flag of Allah's oneness, Allah willing.'"

And Ma’an in English changed the end of that passage as follows:

"We tell the Israeli and the American occupiers that we have leaders who have changed history with their Jihad and their steadfastness. We are ready to sacrifice our lives to bring back peace."

Get it? The Fatah group says jihad, Islamism, terrorism hooray! Bin Laden was their great teacher. But the version given out to the world is that they are ready to die for peace. This is the gap that usually exists and usually goes unnoticed.

It is less surprising that Hamas expressed anger at its sister’s demise. Yet remember that historically Hamas was not an ally of bin Laden's. Yet it couldn't resist either. Hamas’s candidate for Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh—you know, the guy we are always being told leads the “moderate” faction—mourned the death of this “Arab holy warrior.” He was confirming that bin Ladin was properly waging jihad.

Haniyeh continued, “We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood.”

Now, if you just see that line quoted consider what it means. Haniyeh is declaring a blood feud with the United States which means that Hamas is committing itself to kill Americans. Saying that the United States sheds “Muslim and Arab blood” is not an accidental phrase.

Of course, this comes after the U.S. government successfully intervened to press Israel to reduce sanctions on the Gaza Strip to an absolute minimum; okayed the passing of $400 million of U.S. taxpayer money to the Gaza Strip (through the Palestinian Authority) to take care of folks there; and helped overturn an Egyptian government keeping Hamas in check.

You call that gratitude? Objectively, the Obama Administration has been one of Hamas’s best friends. Moreover, Hamas has just signed a unity agreement with Fatah. Scores of countries will vote in September at the UN General Assembly to recognize a Fatah-Hamas government unconditionally.

Incidentally, note that it is portrayed as an act of aggression for the United States to try to kill or capture the man who launched a bloody, unprovoked attack on it. This is precisely the way much of the Western mass media and a number of governments portray Israel's self-defense against terror attacks.

The Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl asks the right question:

“Should the mourner of bin Laden be recognized as a worthy partner for peace with Israel, or a potential leader of a new Arab state? Haniyeh’s comments won’t leave the White House--which has been weighing how to respond to the Palestinian unity deal -- with much of a choice.”

Perhaps and perhaps not. And how about the leaders of all those other democratic countries just aching to break bread with Hamas? In fact, what is career moderate Mahmoud Abbas and the moderate Palestinian Authority making a deal with Hamas?

Well, a few hours later the PA signed a unity agreement with Hamas. Backing the September 11 attack seems no barrier to their cooperation. Or to continued U.S. aid and diplomatic support? Or to Europeans supporting a Fatah-Hamas state? Guess what? The British government immediately issued a statement applauding the Fatah-Hamas deal.

And that’s not all. Haniyeh also urged the Palestinian Authority to rescind its past recognition of Israel. Remember, that’s no longer a demand by an enemy but a proposal made by a partner and ally. In Haniyeh’s words: Israel’s presence “on our land is illegal and cannot be recognized.” Be sure that he was not talking about parts of the West Bank and east Jerusalem but the whole shebang.

Meanwhile, the Syrian regime’s killing of more than 500 unarmed demonstrators is not damaging its standing at the UN, where Syria may soon receive a seat on the Human Rights’ Council. Well, why not? Libya and Iran have achieved such rewards.

And what about Hizballah, now a major part of Lebanon’s government, involved in such events as the attack on the U.S. Marine barracks, killing 242 Americans, and a number of kidnappings including the horrible torture and murder of Colonel Rich Higgins?

Then there's the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Its leader called for violent Jihad to destroy America in October 2010. Four months later, the president of the United States publicly accepted its inclusion in a future Egyptian government. Might this not be a good idea?

Finally, if the United States can do a targeted killing of a terrorist who had killed Americans, unintentionally knocking off an innocent bystander in the process, how can anyone complain about Israel doing the same thing?

Yes, there’s a great deal to learn from the bin Laden assassination.

PS:
Maan has issued a "correction" on the translation but then al-Aqsa Brigades denied having made the statement. Presumably, Maan would not have been fooled by imposters and Abbas probably told the al-Aqsa Brigades that the statement was very damaging and should be withdrawn.
Oh, and by the way, appeasement won't work with these forces because they view the conflict as irreconcilible no matter what America does. Here's a little parable:

DOROTHY: "You can have your old slippers but give me back Toto...." The Witch tries to remove the slippers and gets a terrible shock from them.
DOROTHY: "I'm sorry. I didn't do it! Can I still have my dog?"
WITCH: "No!....Those slippers will never come off, as long as....you're alive."

Sources:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704330404576291193887494596.html
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4062337,00.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/the-mourners-of-binladen/2011/04/19/AFlPCfYF_blog.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110502/wl_nm/us_binladen_palestinians_2
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/middleeast/03gaza.html?pagewanted=print
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/middleeast/03gaza.html
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=4976

Bin Laden Is Dead And His Cause Goes Marching On

This article is published on PajamasMedia. The full text is presented here for your convenience.

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By Barry Rubin

Usama bin Laden is dead. But revolutionary Islamism is very much alive and stronger than ever. Thinking that bin Laden is the main problem and his death is the solution is very dangerous indeed and might well intensify the policies that have been leading toward the victory of his cause, though not his specific movement.

It is easy to forget that when bin Laden came on the scene revolutionary Islamism was in retreat. True, Iran was ruled by a revolutionary Islamist regime but that government had failed to extend the revolution overseas very much despite its best efforts. Another such regime, the Taliban, came to power in remote Afghanistan.

But by the end of the 1990s, revolutionary Islamism wasn’t doing so well. The reason was that its strategy was to overthrow Arab governments from within. There had been civil wars in Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, and to a lesser extent in other places. The existing dictatorships, however, had repressed the Islamists.

So bin Laden came along with a different approach. If direct attacks on non-Islamist governments in Muslim-majority countries didn’t work, he proposed an international movement that would raise revolutionary enthusiasm by attacking the West.

One doesn’t have to isolate a single reason for this targeting. The West represented democracy and modernity, a licentious freedom and secularism that bin Laden and his comrades detested. They also hated Western policies, especially the support of Middle Eastern regimes to which these Islamists attributed their own inability to win.

While Israel was one of these countries, prior to September 11, bin Laden’s movement was more concerned about Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It also spoke a great deal about an alleged genocide in Iraq due to sanctions. And finally, it wanted to hit the West to show that it was a paper tiger and could be defeated. And an overarching factor was that the Islamists did not want the West to serve as role model for the future of their own societies though they feared that this was precisely what was happening.

So bin Laden formed al-Qaida and took the road to September 11. It is important to understand that al-Qaida failed as a movement but succeeded in the broadest sense as an idea. Since al-Qaida was relatively small and eschewed political action and base building for the sole tactic of terrorism it was relatively easy to repress, though not to eliminate entirely.

The U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan drove it from its home base and killed or captured many of its leaders. Al-Qaida scattered but that was not such a great disadvantage given its strategy. From Morocco to Somalia, from Indonesia to Western Europe it continued to stage scattered, but sometimes very bloody attacks. Yet that was the most it could do. In revolutionary terms, al-Qaida was equivalent to the terrorist’s of late nineteenth century Europe, the assassins and bomb throwers of anarchism and Russian social revolutionary tradition.

Ah, but who, then, is the Lenin of our day? Just as the anarchist bomb-throwers were a sideshow—however horrific, bloody, and needing to be repressed—the same is true of today.

Al-Qaida stages individual acts of terrorism. Hamas, Hizballah, the AKP in Turkey, and the Muslim Brotherhoods seize state power. And they do so with the help of Iran and Syria.

That’s power, that’s a threat far exceeding the blowing up of a café or embassy. To take control over the lives of millions of people, to hold assets amounting to billions of dollars, to rule over whole territories and launch full-scale wars, that is power. That is a threat to Western interests, to world stability.

What has happened since September 11, 2001? We can list the terrorist attacks by al-Qaida and the casualties. And we can list the following not by al-Qaida:

--An Islamist regime rules Turkey and has seized control of most institutions and is gradually crushing democracy. This regime has aligned itself with Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, and Syria.

--An Islamist regime rules the Gaza Strip and has already set off one war and will no doubt do so again. Its patrons are Iran, Syria, and now Egypt. This government now exercises veto power over any Israel-Palestinian peace which means there won’t be an Israel-Palestinian peace.

--An Islamist-oriented regime rules Lebanon, backed by Iran and Syria. It has already set off one war and will no doubt do so again.

--The Iranian regime has weathered a major internal upheaval and is heading full-speed ahead toward nuclear weapons.

--With Western help the regime in Egypt—one of the main bulwarks against revolutionary Islamism has fallen--and whether or not Islamists there take over they will be a lot stronger, able to act freely, and direct a movement of millions seeking to Islamize and eventually make Islamist the largest Arab country of all.

--Revolutionary Islamism is also a serious threat, though so far has been kept at bay, in countries like Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan while in other parts of the world it has spread to places like Chechnya, the northern Caucasus, the Balkans, Nigeria, Somalia, southern Thailand and the southern Philippines, and Indonesia. The resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan seems far from impossible as does a revolutionary Islamist upheaval in Pakistan.

--Serious Islamist movements have gained political hegemony over growing Muslim communities all over the West. While many Muslims are indifferent to the movement and a few courageous dissidents combat it, Western governments and elites often blindly favor the Islamists.

--In fact, the degree that Western governments, elites, and societies are blind to the actual threat defies belief. The far left—which is a lot nearer than it used to be—often makes common cause with revolutionary Islamism.

Many of these other movements are “smarter” than bin Laden, which is to say they know how to be more tactically flexible. They can smile, and smile and be a villain. They understand far better how to be patient, conceal their plans, use elections, sponsor social services to win supporters, run youth camps to train suicide bombers, take Western aid and assistance, hang out with Western journalists to prove they’re cool guys, produce satellite television networks, and play Western democracies for all they are worth. Oh, and they can still throw bombs with the best of them.

Or, to put it in Iranian terms, bin Laden was the “little Satan” and the “big Satan,” the real revolutionary Islamist movement, couldn’t care less about his death. Indeed, his death serves a useful purpose. If the West thinks the “war on terror” is over and it’s time to celebrate, all the better. Countries can go on trading with Iran, engaging Syria and Hizballah, and acting as if there’s no big threat in Egypt. All the better to eat you up.

So bin Laden is dead and September 11 is, in a sense, avenged. But his cause goes marching on. It is marching forward. And as the West cheers at the good news of bin Laden’s death it may go back to sleep thereafter, snoring as the bin Laden’s of the world advance.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist for PajamasMedia at http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org.

What They Don't Tell You: Grand Mufti Claims Egypt's Islam Is Moderate (Sort of True, But For How Long?)

This is the other half of my Jerusalem Post column, reprinted here for your convenience

By Barry Rubin

Ali Gomaa, grand mufti of Egypt, writes in the New York Times:

"Egypt’s religious tradition is anchored in a moderate, tolerant view of Islam. We believe that Islamic law guarantees freedom of conscience and expression (within the bounds of common decency) and equal rights for women. And as head of Egypt’s agency of Islamic jurisprudence, I can assure you that the religious establishment is committed to the belief that government must be based on popular sovereignty."

Well, without getting into things like official clerics endorsing suicide bombings, here's what they don't tell you: Gomaa is a Mubarak appointee. He is regarded as a "parrot" for the fallen regime. The Muslim Brotherhood is already demanding his resignation.

Either he will quit, be forced out, or eventually be replaced by someone whose view of Islam is closer to that of the Brotherhood than his. And they don't believe Islamic law guarantees freedom of conscience and expression or equal rights for women.

And note that last phrase. He's saying, after supporting the Mubarak dictatorship for decades, that he now is supporting democracy. But if government is based on popular sovereignty doesn't that mean that the grand mufti should reflect prevailing views of Islam, which includes--according to reliable polls--overwhelming support for Koranic amputation and stoning punishments, killing anyone who converts to another religion, and other things that don't seem to moderate and tolerant?

The entire religious establishment in Egypt has been organized to fight Islamism and the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that will probably control about one-third of the next parliament. And many Egyptians who don't like the Brotherhood will also see Gomaa as a remnant of the dictatorship they want to eliminate.

All mosques must be government approved; mosque leaders are controlled by the government; religious education is controlled by the government; the head of the al-Azhar mosque-university and the grand mufti (Gomaa) are appointed by the government; clerics are allotted television time and media space by the government.

Guess what? There's a new government and thus a "new" Islam.

Incidentally, the Brotherhood is now calling for a Saudi-style morality police with the powers of arrest. Is that the moderate, tolerant style Gomaa is advocating?

There are three points many are missing on the issue of Islam in Egypt:

1. Many who don't like the Brotherhood and will vote for other candidates want stricter social controls. Will the revolution ultimately bring Egyptians more freedom or less freedom

2. The Brotherhood will be a political power and other parties will make deals with it in which they give the Brotherhood what it wants on religious-related, social matters, and even foreign policy issues in exchange for Brotherhood support for their own priorities.

3. Beyond the Brotherhood there are (and will be more) radical violent Islamists who will carry out terrorism against uppity women, secularists, Christians, and Israeli or Western targets. Many of them were radicalized by being in the Brotherhood. With the Brotherhood legalized and growing there will be many more such people. The government will not crack down on their base-building and propaganda activities. How tough will it be on their terrorism?

Muslim Brotherhood Proves It Is Radical and Aggressive--According to its Own Test

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By Barry Rubin

In his New York Times op-ed back in February, Muslim Brotherhood agent--disguised as sophisticated academic--Tariq Ramadan wrote:

“By deciding to line up behind Mohamed ElBaradei, who has emerged as the chief figure among the anti-Mubarak protesters, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership has signaled that now is not the time to expose itself by making political demands that might frighten the West, not to mention the Egyptian people. Caution is the watchword. “

But wait! Now it is the month of March and the Brotherhood has broken with ElBaradei. In fact, Brotherhood supporters by the hundred threw stones at ElBaradei and prevented him from voting on the constitutional amendments during the recent referendum. So much for democracy.

So to take Ramadan at his word, now that the Brotherhood has turned against ElBaradei and physically attacked him, does that mean--to paraphrase Ramadan--that:

The Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership has signaled that now is the time to expose itself by making political demands that might frighten the West and the Egyptian people. Confidence and aggression is the watchword.

In other words, the Brotherhood can toss away one of the main "proofs" of its moderation and lack of aggressiveness and the Western elite--including those in whose newspaper these words appeared--don't even notice!

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.