Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Gatestone Update :: Khaled Abu Toameh: Muslim Brotherhood Plotting To Take Over Jordan?, and more


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Muslim Brotherhood Plotting To Take Over Jordan?

by Khaled Abu Toameh
May 30, 2012 at 5:00 am
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What is clear by now is that no matter how much the king does to fight corruption and implement reforms, the Muslim Brotherhood will continue to argue that it is not enough. Many Arabs feel that President Obama's endorsement of the Muslim Brotherhood has emboldened the Islamists and increased their desire to drive moderate and secular rulers out of the Middle East. Unless the US administration stops flirting with the Muslim Brotherhood, Jordan will be turned into an Islamic republic.
Jordanian government officials say there are growing signs that the kingdom's powerful Muslim Brotherhood organization has plans to overthrow the regime.
The organization, according to the officials, has succeeded in hijacking the anti-corruption and pro-democracy protests that have swept Jordan over the past year.
Today, most of the anti-regime demonstrations throughout the kingdom are being initiated and led by Muslim Brotherhood supporters whose goal is to turn Jordan into an Islamic republic.
Many Arabs feel that President Barack Obama's endorsement of the Muslim Brotherhood has emboldened the Islamists and increased their appetite to drive moderate and secular rulers out of the Arab world.
King Abdullah has good reason to be worried about the Muslim Brotherhood's efforts to hijack the pro-reform drive in the kingdom. This concern was reportedly one of the main reasons that the monarch replaced Prime Minister Awn Khasawna -- a staunch supporter of rapprochement with Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian sister-movement, Hamas -- a few weeks ago.
In a bid to appease the anti-corruption and pro-democracy campaigners, King Abdullah has also taken a number of unprecedented measures against a number of senior government officials suspected of embezzling public funds and abusing their powers. The king has replaced three prime ministers since the "Arab Spring" began and has thrown a number of former officials into prison, but all this has not satisfied the Muslim Brotherhood.
What is clear by now is that no matter how much the king does to fight corruption and implement reforms, the Muslim Brotherhood will continue to argue that this is not enough.
"They have learned from the Egyptian experience, where Muslim Brotherhood also hijacked the anti-regime protests that were triggered by secular and genuine reformists," explained a senior Jordanian government official in Amman.
Another Jordanian official said that his government has proof that "outside forces" were backing Muslim Brotherhood's scheme to "spread chaos and anarchy in the kingdom" by exploiting demands for reform and democracy.
The official pointed out that some representatives of Muslim Brotherhood recently visited Turkey, where they reportedly met with former CIA deputy director Steven Kappes and former British MI5 chief Eliza Manningham-Buller.
Osama Rantisi, a prominent Jordanian journalist and political analyst, claimed that Kappes and Manningham-Buller pledged in the meeting that "the US government and its intelligence services will support the Muslim Brotherhood goals of reaching power."
The claim has been vehemently denied by both the US government and Muslim Brotherhood.
Muslim Brotherhood leaders say the report about a conspiracy backed by the US and Britain to help the group topple King Abdullah's regime is part of a smear campaign waged by Jordan's General Intelligence Department.
Some Jordanians have also pointed to Iran and its proxy Hizbullah militia in Lebanon as being behind a Muslim Brotherhood scheme to stage a coup in the kingdom.
But while these efforts have persuaded many Jordanians to stop their street protests, Muslim Brotherhood supporters continue to stage protests and incite Jordanians against the regime.
What has particularly worried King Abdullah is that the Muslim Brotherhood has managed to "infiltrate" many powerful Jordanian tribes, which have always been known as traditional and staunch supporters of the monarchy.
Unless the US Administration stops flirting with Muslim Brotherhood, Jordan will be turned into a radical Islamic republic and a source of further instability in the Middle East.
Related Topics:  Khaled Abu Toameh

The Cause of Europeans' Attitude Towards Israel

by Peter Martino
May 30, 2012 at 5:00 am
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Unfortunately, the Belgian attitude seems to be predominant in Europe today. Jewish religious practices are morally equated with intolerant Islamic behavior – but the Muslims are condoned while the Jews are criticized and the Jewish state is morally equated with Iran. The truth is deliberately misrepresented.
Last April, Belgium's Justice Minister, Annemie Turtelboom, and its Foreign Minister, Didier Reynders, went on an official visit to Morocco, where they had an appointment with Morocco's Prime Minister, Abdelilah Benkirane, the leader of the Islamist Justice and Development Party.
Benkirane refused to address Ms. Turtelboom because she is a woman; he talked exclusively to Mr Reynders. Benkirane's misogynous views are rooted in Koranic verses expressing contempt for women, considered only half the worth of men.
After Ms. Turtelboom had returned home, she admitted that although she had felt insulted, she had deliberately not responded to the humiliation to "avoid a diplomatic row." Indignant female Belgian parliamentarians of Moroccan origin demanded that the Belgian government protest the treatment of the minister. But both the minister and the government preferred to remain quiet and forget the incident.
Last week, when Laurette Onkelinx, the Belgian Minister of Health, attended the annual world health conference in Geneva, she was greeted by her Israeli counterpart, Yaakov Litzman, a Hassidic Jew, who politely refused to shake Ms Onkelinx' hand, and explained that religious stricture prevented him for doing so. Ms Onkelinx is making a great fuss about this. "My hands are clean!" she posted on her official Facebook page, comparing the Israeli minister to an Iranian official. "This kind of fundamentalist attitude, connected to a certain perception of religion and women, troubles me deeply," she wrote.
The difference in the responses of the Belgian government ministers during the two incidents is striking. The personal insult to a female minister by the Islamist Prime Minister of Morocco was downplayed in order to "avoid a diplomatic row." No such caution was taken into consideration when the Hassidic Israeli minister declined to shake the hand of his female Belgian colleague. On the contrary, it would seem that the latter incident is deliberately being blown out of proportion.
Ms Onkelinx, who was once married to a Moroccan, has a large Muslim constituency. "The minister's childish reaction demonstrates her ignorance," Michael Freilich, editor of Joods Actueel, Belgium's largest Jewish publication, initially commented. Later, however, Freilich disclosed that Onkelinx had not been ignorant at all. Pinchas Kornfeld, secretary-general of the orthodox Jewish community Machsike Hadas in Antwerp, Belgium, told Freilich that he had met Ms Onkelinx on several occasions. "She is well aware that I would never shake her hand, but she is also aware that I have the greatest respect for her and for women in general," Kornfeld said.
Consequently, it would seem that Onkelinx is eagerly using the incident in a deliberate attempt to embarrass Israel in the eyes of the Belgian public, depicting the Jewish state as backward, misogynous and intolerant – a state comparable to Iran.
Unfortunately, the Belgian attitude seems to be predominant in Europe today. Jewish religious practices are morally equated with intolerant Muslim behavior -- but the Muslims are condoned, while the Jews are criticized and the Jewish state is morally equated with Iran.
The same deliberate moral equation of Israel with its mortal enemies can be seen in European Union reports on the situation in Jerusalem. The truth is deliberately misrepresented. Each year, through secretive processes, the EU donates tens of millions of euros to biased political NGOs on the West Bank and in Israel. Even the money of Jewish taxpayers is abused for this purpose. The reports of these very NGOs are subsequently used as the basis for EU policy statements and recommendations which undermine the Jewish claims to Jerusalem.
Jason Edelstein of NGO Monitor says this attitude is indicative of Europe's neo-colonialist agenda in Israel. "European colonialism ended after the Second World War," writes Edelstein. "And while African and Asian countries experienced post-colonial challenges, Israel developed quickly into a democracy with a burgeoning economy. But, along with these successes, Israel also became a playground for a neo-colonialist European agenda with its goals being to meddle and manipulate the Israeli democratic processes."
The same phenomenon is currently at play in the Belgian attitude towards Israel. Belgium with its bloody colonial past, including King Leopold's crimes in the Congo, bites its tongue when dealing with Islamic insults, but balks in indignation at the behavior of an Orthodox Jew. It lectures the Jewish State, but refrains from criticizing Islamists.
As Edelstein rightly says, the European attitude "violate[s] basic norms, increase[s] tensions between Europe and Israel, and [makes] Israelis weary of outside policy recommendations." His conclusion is unpleasant: "European colonialism in the region ended after the Second World War but in Israel, it remains to this day."
When we ask why Europe is behaving in such an appaling, condescending manner with regard to Israel, this author, a non-Jewish European, can only draw an equally unpleasant, but unavoidable, conclusion: many Europeans are still under the sway of the same anti-Semitism -- couched as moral self-regard -- that brought about their homicidal complicity in the Dreyfus Trial and in handing over Jews to be murdered by Hitler's Third Reich.
Related Topics:  Peter Martino

Christians Should "Convert, Pay Tribute, or Leave," Says Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Candidate?

by Raymond Ibrahim
May 30, 2012 at 4:00 am
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"They need to know that conquest is coming, that Egypt will be Islamic, and that they must pay jizya or emigrate," Morsi reportedly said.
According to the popular Egyptian website, El Bashayer, Muhammad Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate, just declared that he will "achieve the Islamic conquest (fath) of Egypt for the second time, and make all Christians convert to Islam, or else pay the jizya," the additional Islamic tax, or financial tribute, required of non-Muslims, or financial tribute.
In a brief report written by Samuel al-Ashay and published by El Bashayer on May 27, Morsi allegedly made these comments while speaking with a journalist at the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, adding "We will not allow Ahmed Shafiq [his contending presidential candidate] or anyone else to impede our second Islamic conquest of Egypt."
After his interviewer pointed out that the first Muslim conquest of Egypt was "carried out at the hands of Amr bin al-As [in 641]," he asked Morsi, "Who will the second Islamic conqueror be?" Morsi, replied, "The second Muslim conqueror will be Muhammad Morsi," referring to himself, "and history will record it."
When asked what he thought about many Christian Copts coming out to vote for his secular opponent, Ahmed Shafiq, Morsi reportedly said, "They need to know that conquest is coming, and Egypt will be Islamic, and that they must pay jizya or emigrate."
If this interview is accurate, certainly Morsi would not be the first political Islamist in Egypt to say he wants to see the nation's Christians subjugated and made to pay jizya (see here for more examples).
However, considering that the English language media are currently reporting that Morsi is trying to woo Egypt's Christians and women to win more votes, it is difficult to imagine that he actually made those comments: one does not doubt that he favors the idea of a "second Islamic conquest" and the subjugation of Christians; one doubts that he would be so foolish as to reveal his mind now, publicly, and thereby jeopardize his chances of winning the presidency.
Then again, his remarks are reported in the context of a private meeting at the headquarters of the Brotherhood's political party. Perhaps Morsi thought he was speaking to a fellow Islamist who would not expose him? Perhaps he was frustrated at having to win Copts over and was "venting"? Stay tuned.
Related Topics:  Egypt  |  Raymond Ibrahim

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