Barack Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood (Part 1 - Updated)

Mike L.

{Cross-posted at Israel Thrives and Geoffff's Joint Bar and Grill.}

In a recent conversation at Israel Thrives the question of Barack Obama's facilitation of the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and thus the rise of radical Islam, came up. The question is this:

Did, or did not, the Obama administration facilitate the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and that of radical Islam more generally, into positions of power throughout the Middle East during the recent misnamed "Arab Spring"?

It should be fairly clear to anyone paying attention to such things that the Obama administration did, in fact, help out the Brothers in their rise to power, and therefore assisted, wittingly or not, the general rise of radical Islam throughout that part of the world. Before launching into the evidence let us note the simple fact that the Obama administration in no way opposes the Muslim Brotherhood. Surely this we can concede without much argument. Despite the fact that the Brotherhood is the foremost anti-Semitic organization on the face of the planet, with an historical provenance that goes to Nazi Germany, the Obama administration has never in any manner opposed this organization.

That, in and of itself, is damning.

It is, in fact, a betrayal not only of Israel, and of the Jewish people, but of the American people and all non-Muslims throughout the Middle East. It is a betrayal of the American people because Obama's failure to tell us just who these people are legitimizes an organization in the minds of millions of Americans who will not understand that the Brotherhood holds women, Gay people, and Jews in contempt and views the west, including the United States, as an enemy to Islam.  It is also a betrayal of Egyptian Christians, the Copts, who will now be forced into second and third class citizenship within Egypt if the Brotherhood institutes Sharia as they have claimed as their goal.

These, however, are sins of omission on the part of the Obama administration, rather than actually acts of commission. The Obama administration, in both word and deed, has legitimized the Muslim Brotherhood and, through demanding the deposing of Hosni Mubarack, directly cleared a path for the rise of the Brotherhood in that country.

Legitimization

The first way in which the Obama administration has helped the rise of the Brotherhood is through the legitimization of this group. As early as the spring of 2009, Ha'aretz reports that:

U.S. President Barack Obama met with members of Egypt's Islamist opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, earlier this year, according to a report in Thursday editions of the Egyptian daily newspaper Almasry Alyoum.

The newspaper reported that Obama met the group's members, who reside in the U.S. and Europe, in Washington two months ago.

Thus long before the fall of Mubarak, the Obama administration was meeting with the Brotherhood, thereby legitimizing an organization that is an enemy of the United States and of the Jewish people. Obama even went so far as to insist, to Mubarak's displeasure, that a contingent of the Brotherhood be allowed to attend his now famous (or infamous, depending upon one's view) Cairo speech in June of '09.

This is just a brief note, really, but I intend to write a series of small articles outlining the ways in which the Obama administration has befriended what is essentially a terrorist organization that has taken over the country of Egypt and that calls for the genocide of the Jews.

Update:

Obama invites Egypt's Islamist leader to U.S.

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama has invited Egypt's newly elected Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, to visit the United States in September, an Egyptian official said on Sunday, reflecting the new ties Washington is cultivating with the region's Islamists.

Make of that what you will, but understand that both Hamas and Qaeda are branches of the Brotherhood.