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Authors: Erick Stakelbeck
Tags: #Political Science / Political Ideologies / Conservatism & Liberalism
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BOOK: The Brotherhood: America's Next Great Enemy
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There was a time, not very long ago, that Jews made up a sizable minority in Egypt. This sounds hard to believe today; Israel and Egypt spent a good portion of the last sixty-five years as mortal enemies and may be heading there again thanks to the ascendance of the Muslim Brotherhood. Today, fewer than one hundred Jews remain in Egypt, most of them elderly, and they live in fear. But in 1933, up to eighty thousand Jews lived in the country, based mainly in Cairo and Alexandria, enjoying a brief period of relative tolerance under the reign of King Fuad I. Fuad allowed Jews to serve in parliament. Under his reign, the anti-Jewish oppression, pogroms, and dhimmitude of previous centuries seemed to be fading. His government even permitted a thousand Jewish immigrants to land in Port Said on their way to Palestine in 1933.
18
To be fair, Fuad’s Egypt was far from a paradise for Jews: despite some advances, they were still looked upon as second-class citizens forever cursed by Allah in the Koran as “the sons of apes and pigs.” But the focus of most Egyptians’ ire was not on Jews and the fledgling Zionist movement but rather on the hated British occupiers. That all changed in the mid-1930s, thanks to an unholy alliance between the German Nazi Party and Hassan al-Banna’s Muslim Brotherhood.
18
To be fair, Fuad’s Egypt was far from a paradise for Jews: despite some advances, they were still looked upon as second-class citizens forever cursed by Allah in the Koran as “the sons of apes and pigs.” But the focus of most Egyptians’ ire was not on Jews and the fledgling Zionist movement but rather on the hated British occupiers. That all changed in the mid-1930s, thanks to an unholy alliance between the German Nazi Party and Hassan al-Banna’s Muslim Brotherhood.
The swift and harsh nature of Egypt’s turn against the Jews is particularly chilling given that in 1933 there were actually large anti-Nazi demonstrations held in Cairo.
19
Beneath the surface, however, something nasty was brewing. The Nazi Party was making inroads in Egypt and it had a fervent and influential admirer on the ground in Hassan al-Banna. While the Muslim Brotherhood founder did not embrace the Nazi ideology of Aryan superiority, he was fully on board with Hitler’s despotic, anti-democratic ideals and most of all, with Der Fuhrer’s rabid Jew hatred. It wasn’t long before Nazi agents were funding al-Banna and his growing Islamist movement. Nazi money even helped finance the creation of the Brotherhood’s “Secret Apparatus”—a paramilitary terrorist wing that went on to carry out assassinations and other violent mayhem on Egyptian soil and beyond .
20
The Obama administration and the Brotherhood’s assorted Western admirers may be shocked to learn that to this day the organization has never formally abolished this terror cell. In fact, if the Brothers’ violent tactics and jihadist-outreach in Egypt these past two years are any indication, they seem bent on revamping the Special Apparatus in a major way.
19
Beneath the surface, however, something nasty was brewing. The Nazi Party was making inroads in Egypt and it had a fervent and influential admirer on the ground in Hassan al-Banna. While the Muslim Brotherhood founder did not embrace the Nazi ideology of Aryan superiority, he was fully on board with Hitler’s despotic, anti-democratic ideals and most of all, with Der Fuhrer’s rabid Jew hatred. It wasn’t long before Nazi agents were funding al-Banna and his growing Islamist movement. Nazi money even helped finance the creation of the Brotherhood’s “Secret Apparatus”—a paramilitary terrorist wing that went on to carry out assassinations and other violent mayhem on Egyptian soil and beyond .
20
The Obama administration and the Brotherhood’s assorted Western admirers may be shocked to learn that to this day the organization has never formally abolished this terror cell. In fact, if the Brothers’ violent tactics and jihadist-outreach in Egypt these past two years are any indication, they seem bent on revamping the Special Apparatus in a major way.
The Ikhwan thanked the Nazis for their support by translating Hitler’s
Mein Kampf
and
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
into Arabic and publishing the kind of crude, anti-Semitic caricatures common in pro-Nazi newspapers. But al-Banna’s activities against the Jews weren’t limited to mere propaganda. The Brotherhood went into action around 1937, collecting money for Arab fighters in Palestine and attacking Jewish-owned shops in Cairo.
21
The Secret Apparatus also played a role in a bloody Arab revolt in Palestine against British forces and Jews. Armed bands of Hassan al-Banna’s jihadists hunted down Jewish immigrants, many of whom had only recently escaped the horrors of the Holocaust. As al-Banna’s grandson, Tariq Ramadan, has proudly recounted:
Mein Kampf
and
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
into Arabic and publishing the kind of crude, anti-Semitic caricatures common in pro-Nazi newspapers. But al-Banna’s activities against the Jews weren’t limited to mere propaganda. The Brotherhood went into action around 1937, collecting money for Arab fighters in Palestine and attacking Jewish-owned shops in Cairo.
21
The Secret Apparatus also played a role in a bloody Arab revolt in Palestine against British forces and Jews. Armed bands of Hassan al-Banna’s jihadists hunted down Jewish immigrants, many of whom had only recently escaped the horrors of the Holocaust. As al-Banna’s grandson, Tariq Ramadan, has proudly recounted:
Al Banna provided assistance to the Palestinians by sending them an advisor and a specialist in military training, raising funds to buy weapons, and setting up training camps that he ran jointly with members of the Special Organization. Volunteers came to Palestine in groups to support the resistance.
22
In 1936, the Egyptian Brotherhood had only eight hundred members. By 1938, when it had fully committed itself to the Nazis’ anti-Semitic agenda and jihad against the Jews—both in Egypt and abroad—the group’s membership had exploded (no pun intended) to two hundred thousand, with branches emerging throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The Secret Apparatus alone boasted forty thousand committed jihadists.
23
As with his glorification of martyrdom and jihad, al-Banna could draw on endless material from the Koran and hadiths as theological justification for his anti-Jewish offensive. Some examples:
23
As with his glorification of martyrdom and jihad, al-Banna could draw on endless material from the Koran and hadiths as theological justification for his anti-Jewish offensive. Some examples:
• “Ignominy shall be [the Jews’] portion wheresoever they are found.... They have incurred anger from their Lord, and wretchedness is laid upon them... because they disbelieve the revelations of Allah and slew the Prophets wrongfully... because they were rebellious and used to transgress.” (Surah 111, v. 112)
• “[The Jews] are the heirs of Hell.... They will spare no pains to corrupt you. They desire nothing but your ruin. Their hatred is clear from what they say.... When evil befalls you they rejoice.” (Surah 111, v. 117–20)
• “Because of the wrongdoing of the Jews. . . . And of their taking usury... and of their devouring people’s wealth by false pretenses. We have prepared for those of them who disbelieve a painful doom.” (Surah IV, v. 160–61)
• “Allah hath cursed [the Jews] for their disbelief.” (Surah IV, v. 46)
• “O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for friends.” (Surah V, v. 51)
• “And thou wilt find them [the Jews] the greediest of mankind.” (Surah 11, v. 96)
• “Allah fighteth against [the Jews]. How perverse they are!” (Surah IX, v. 30)
• “[The Jews] spread evil in the land.” (Surah V, vs. 62–66)
• “The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.” (41:6985)
In addition, the Koran refers to the Jews in the context of “apes and pigs” multiple times. Egypt’s Muslims were well acquainted with the idea of Jews as sub-humans, and they knew Islam’s prophet, Mohammed, had carried out numerous massacres of Arabian Jewish tribes. Al-Banna and his Nazi partners simply tapped this anti-Jewish legacy.
While ridding the region of Western, particularly British, influence and reestablishing a caliphate governed by sharia law were paramount goals, by 1948 the Brothers’ immediate mission was to prevent the reestablishment of the Jewish state of Israel by any means necessary. Al-Banna had spent the previous decade engineering Ikhwan attacks on Jewish-owned businesses and synagogues in Egypt, sending fighters to Palestine, and solidifying his relationships with German Nazis (Egypt had become a refuge for Nazi fugitives in the aftermath of World War II). Now the moment of truth had arrived. The rebirth of Israel was imminent and al-Banna’s close associate, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the infamous Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, turned to the Brotherhood for help in pushing the Jews into the sea.
The Mufti had lived in Berlin as an honored guest of the Nazis during World War II, meeting with Adolf Hitler and personally visiting Nazi death camps. He encouraged Hitler and his minions to extend the Final Solution to the Jews living in the Arab world and even helped recruit some twenty thousand Bosnian Muslim volunteers into Hitler’s Waffen SS.
24
Haj Amin al-Husseini, essentially the first leader of what has become known as the Palestinian people, was, quite literally, a Nazi.
24
Haj Amin al-Husseini, essentially the first leader of what has become known as the Palestinian people, was, quite literally, a Nazi.
True to form, the Muslim Brotherhood embraced the Mufti. Al-Banna even arranged for al-Husseini’s political exile in Egypt after the Second World War.
25
The Mufti returned to Jerusalem soon after and lobbied al-Banna to send Muslim Brotherhood volunteers to help battle the Jews. Al-Banna eagerly obliged and the Mufti organized the Ikhwan brigades that arrived to fight alongside invading Arab armies during Israel’s War for Independence in 1948. Said Ramadan, Tariq’s father and son-in-law of Hassan al-Banna, was chosen to lead the Brotherhood’s efforts during the conflict. In the process, he became a military confidante of Jordan’s King Abdullah.
26
25
The Mufti returned to Jerusalem soon after and lobbied al-Banna to send Muslim Brotherhood volunteers to help battle the Jews. Al-Banna eagerly obliged and the Mufti organized the Ikhwan brigades that arrived to fight alongside invading Arab armies during Israel’s War for Independence in 1948. Said Ramadan, Tariq’s father and son-in-law of Hassan al-Banna, was chosen to lead the Brotherhood’s efforts during the conflict. In the process, he became a military confidante of Jordan’s King Abdullah.
26
Israel prevailed. And as the tide of the war turned, improbably, in favor of the severely outgunned and outmanned Israeli forces, an embittered al-Banna vowed endless jihad against the reborn Jewish nation:
If the Jewish state becomes a fact, and this is realized by the Arab peoples, they will drive the Jews who live in their midst into the sea. . . . Even if we are beaten now in Palestine, we will never submit. We will never accept the Jewish state.... But for politics, the Egyptian army alone, or volunteers of the Muslim Brotherhood, could have destroyed the Jews.
27
Al-Banna’s statements—and especially his actions—concerning Israel and the Jews laid the groundwork for today’s murderous state of affairs, in which the Muslim Brotherhood and its various offshoots are the vanguard of global anti-Semitism and Hitler’s true heirs.
The year 1948 was a pivotal year for the Muslim Brotherhood. Its fierce efforts to prevent the reestablishment of Israel ultimately failed. Even more disastrously, the Egyptian government outlawed the Ikhwan movement outright. The ban came after a wave of terror and violence perpetrated by Brotherhood members upon Egyptian government officials, Coptic Christians, and other opponents of the Brothers’ sharia agenda for Egypt. As Iranian-born author Fereydoun Hoveyda describes in his book,
The Broken Crescent: The “Threat” of Militant Islamic Fundamentalism
, “Cinemas were bombed, hotels set on fire, unveiled women attacked, and homes raided. Prime ministers and other pro-Western high-ranking officials were assassinated.”
28
The Brotherhood’s victims included Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi Nokrashi, murdered by Ikhwan assassins. Al-Banna, in typical Brotherhood fashion, trained and equipped jihadists but took no responsibility for their actions. Hoveyda writes:
The Broken Crescent: The “Threat” of Militant Islamic Fundamentalism
, “Cinemas were bombed, hotels set on fire, unveiled women attacked, and homes raided. Prime ministers and other pro-Western high-ranking officials were assassinated.”
28
The Brotherhood’s victims included Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi Nokrashi, murdered by Ikhwan assassins. Al-Banna, in typical Brotherhood fashion, trained and equipped jihadists but took no responsibility for their actions. Hoveyda writes:
Young aspiring terrorists from all over the world poured into Egypt in order to learn from al-Banna’s men the art of eliminating the enemies of Islam. While training terrorists and directing murders, Sheikh Hassan denied involvement in the assassinations and attacks, using what Shiite clerics called
ketman
(holy dissimulation). Indeed, deceiving infidels was admitted by all Muslims, and Shiites even extended the dissimulation to other Muslims when the security of their “cause” was at stake.
29
Nevertheless, the murder of Nokrashi proved a tipping point. The Brotherhood was banned and al-Banna himself was assassinated in 1949 by Egyptian government agents in Cairo. Hence, the godfather of modern-day jihad met what would be hailed as a “martyr’s death” by his followers. Unfortunately for Egypt and the world, he left behind a fearsome terrorist organization that boasted at least one million members at the time of his death. And in those days, there was no denying that the Muslim Brotherhood was a terrorist organization. Just take a look at these
New York Times
headlines from the era:
New York Times
headlines from the era:
• November 21, 1948, page 5: TERRORIST GROUP ARRESTED IN CAIRO, Police Action Against Members of Moslem Brotherhood Is Said to Solve Outrages
• December 9, 1948, page 12: EGYPT ENDS MOSLEM BROTHERHOOD; ORDERS ITS PROPERTIES CONFISCATED, Proclamation of National Emergency State Accompanies Dissolution Decree—Bombings and Power Bid Laid to Organization
• December 16, 1948, page 17: ARMS UNCOVERED IN CAIRO, Cache of Moslem Brotherhood Seized by Police
• December 29, 1948, page 1: EGYPTIAN PREMIER IS SLAIN BY CAIRO STUDENT TERRORIST, The Assassin Is Member of Moslem Brotherhood—New Cabinet Formed
• January 14, 1949, page 8: 2 KILLED IN CAIRO BY FANATIC’S BOMB, Explosive Left for Prosecutor of Terrorists Is Carried to Street by Office Boy
• February 4, 1949, page 9: SUICIDE SQUADRON IN EGYPT REPORTED, Group of 200 Said to Have Been Formed Within Moslem Brotherhood
• February 13, 1949, page 5: MOSLEM BROTHERHOOD LEADER SLAIN AS HE ENTERS TAXI IN CAIRO STREET, Terrorist Leader Is Killed In Cairo
30
BOOK: The Brotherhood: America's Next Great Enemy
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