Op-Ed: Islamic Comrades No More

Vali R. Nasr

INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES: WASHINGTON — The coup last July in Egypt opened a new divide in the Middle East, alienating the Gulf monarchies from the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a momentous change in the region’s strategic landscape that promises to influence governments and regional alliances for years to come.

For six decades, Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood were comrades in arms. Theirs was an Islamic alliance, formed in the 1950s to defend against the secular Arab nationalism that Egypt’s leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, had unleashed. The alliance survived the end of that ideology, and since the 1980s it had defended the Sunni claim to Islamic leadership against the Shiite challenge from Iran.

Throughout, Saudi Arabia provided refuge and patronage to generations of Brotherhood activists from across the Arab world, glossing over ideological differences between the Saudis and the activists about popular rule and autocracy. Brotherhood intellectuals honed their ideology in Saudi Arabia and developed ties with like-minded Islamists from across the Muslim world. An exiled Syrian Brotherhood activist teaching in Jidda converted a teenage Osama bin Laden to Islamism. It was with Saudi blessing that Brotherhood fighters joined the Afghan jihad in the 1980s, and found their way to Al Qaeda.

The alliance buttressed the House of Saud’s Islamic legitimacy. It also brought greater influence over Arab politics. Saudi Arabia used its ties to the Brotherhood to help Egypt make the transition from Nasser to Anwar el-Sadat in 1970, brokering a deal that favored Sadat after Islamists engaged in street fights and back-room maneuvering against the remnants of Nasserism. That shift eliminated the kingdom’s strongest Arab adversary, ensuring Saudi pre-eminence in Arab politics for decades.

The alliance also ensured the longevity of the Saudi regime, buying it protection against a homegrown Islamist rejection of the modernity and opulence brought by oil wealth, as well as the House of Saud’s steady move into America’s orbit. With the Brotherhood as an underdog it patronized, Saudi Arabia could afford to be both Islamic and pro-West, and to support Islamic causes while backing secular regimes like that of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt — even as he barred the Brotherhood from political power.

All of that changed when the Brotherhood took power in Egypt by winning the presidential election in 2012. » | Vali R. Nasr * | Monday, October 28, 2013

* Vali R. Nasr is the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

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THE GUARDIAN: Court rules that Islamist party's assets should be confiscated as crackdown on supporters of Mohamed Morsi escalates

The Egyptian authorities have banned the Muslim Brotherhood, sealing the marginalisation of the Islamist movement that was the country's most powerful political group until as recently as the July overthrow of Mohamed Morsi.

A court on Monday ordered the freezing of the Brotherhood's assets and also banned its spin-off groups, state media reported.

In practice, the group had almost been forced underground already by the arrest this summer of thousands of its members – including most of its leaders – and the killing of about 1,000 more.

It is a familiar predicament for the Brotherhood, which has been banned for most of its 85-year history and has successfully fought off every threat to its existence. » | Patrick Kingsley in Cairo | Monday, September 23, 2013

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THE VOICE OF RUSSIA: Top Muslim Brotherhood official Gehad al-Haddad Muslim Brotherhood, who was arrested in Cairo on Tuesday and charged with inciting violence, had been working at the Clinton Foundation.

Before emerging as Brotherhood spokesman and adviser to Morsi, al-Haddad served for five years as a top official at the Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit group founded by former President Bill Clinton, according to The Washington Free Beacon.

0 Al-Haddad gained a reputation for pushing the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist agenda in the foreign press, where he was often quoted defending the Brotherhood’s crackdown on civil liberties in Egypt.

0 He was raised in a family of prominent Brotherhood supporters and became the public face of the Islamist organization soon after leaving his post at the Clinton Foundation.

0 However, much of his official work with the Brotherhood took place while he was still claiming to be employed by the Clinton Foundation.

Al-Haddad served as the Clinton Foundation’s city director from August 2007 to August 2012, according to his LinkedIn profile. » | Friday, September 19, 2013

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THE INQUISITR: Is President Obama a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood? “That would explain a lot” his detractors might say. “What would that explain?” you might shoot back. Umm…

Let’s go back to the start of the latest “Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim” nonspiracy. A few days ago, Shadi Hamid, the Director of Research at the Brookings Doha Center, posted a couple of pictures of a local Egyptian paper on Twitter.

Said paper claims that President Obama is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and further, the paper says it has proof.

“If you missed it, ‘liberal’ Egyptian newspaper has front page headline claiming Obama as full-on member of Muslim Brotherhood international,” Hamid wrote.

“Newspaper also claims that son of MB leader threatened Obama with release of ‘papers’ revealing his MB membership,” he continued.

The paper also alleges that President Obama’s half-brother Malik is an al Qaeda activist. » | Wednesday, September 04, 2013

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THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Exclusive: Egypt's ambassador to Britain has said the military-led offensive on the opposition set out to be no different from the British response to the 2011 London riots, but turned bloody when the Muslim Brotherhood started firing on the security forces.

Ashraf ElKholy told the Telegraph that the Muslim Brotherhood offered Egypt a stark choice that it either exercise power or it would assert itself with violence. When the military-backed interim government displaced the Muslim Brotherhood's popularly elected leader, Mohammad Morsi, the organisation opted for confrontation with the state.

"There is no difference with what David Cameron did to deal with the demonstrations here in London," he said. "If the demonstrators don't have any weapons, the police could have reached them and taken them into custody. Nobody would have been hurt. But when the demonstrators have pistols and guns and the police are lined up with guns pointing at them, the authorities have to defend themselves. That is the difference."

Speaking in Egypt's embassy in a Mayfair townhouse, Mr Kholy compared the one-year rule of Mr Morsi to the Islamist takeover of the Iranian state after the 1979 revolution and said that, like Nazism, the Muslim Brotherhood ideology sought to dominate Egyptian society. » | Damien McElroy | Monday, August 19, 2013

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AL JAZEERA: Renowned Kuwaiti preacher sacked by Saudi prince from top job at religious TV channel.

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has fired a renowned Kuwaiti preacher and motivational speaker from the top job at the religious television channel he owns for what he described as "extremist inclinations" and links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

There is no place for those who carry any deviant thoughts at Al Resalah Channel, Alwaleed wrote in a letter to Tareq al-Suwaidan, according to a news release from the prince's office.

Prince Alwaleed said in the letter that he had repeatedly warned Suwaidan against political affiliation. » | Source: Agencies | Sunday, August 18, 2013

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The Egyptian Prosecutor's Office has ordered the arrest of the Muslim Brotherhood's leader. Mohammed Badi, along with 9 other senior officials, accused of inciting violence at a rally on Monday in support of the ousted President, Mohamed Morsi. Over 50 people were killed in the clashes that followed that rally. RT's Paula Slier joins us live now.

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HAARETZ: Egypt's army said to open fire on sit-in protest outside army barracks where ousted president Morsi believed to be held; state TV reports 42 killed; military: 'terrorist group'tried to storm building.

The Muslim Brotherhood called on Egyptians to rise up against those who "want to steal" the revolution, a statement by its political wing said on Monday, after some 42 people were killed in shooting outside the Cairo headquarters of the Republican Guard, according to state television, where it is believed that ousted President Mohammed Morsi is being held.

Egyptian state television also reported that an additional 322 people were wounded.

After the shooting, the Muslim Brotherhood said that the chief of the armed forces, General Abel Fattah al-Sisi wanted to drive Egypt to the same fate as Syria. Holding him responsible, the group described the shooting as a "horrible crime" in a statement posted on Facebook.

"(The Freedom and Justice Party) calls on the great Egyptian people to rise up against those who want to steal their revolution with tanks and armored vehicles, even over the dead bodies of the people," a statement on the party's Facebook page said. » | Reuters and The Associated Press | Monday, July 08, 2013

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