When a Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood (Al-Ikhwan) said "To Hell with Egypt" (Tozz Fi Masr), he was confessing an ideology. The Brotherhood is concerned with pan-Islamism as an identity and as a program. To it, Egypt is only a location where they were born 86 years ago, and where they will be reduced to a past nightmare in a much shorter time. There exists no Brotherhood department or a section called "the International Organization Department." Only the inept Egyptian media, and the ideologically-oriented foreign media espouse that huge fiction -a total falsehood.
Their funding is largely global; their affiliates, like Jihad and the Friends of Jerusalem in Gaza, are like commercial outlets in an international franchise akin to Walmart; their allies, like Turkey and Qatar, see in secular Egypt a field for destabilization; and their propaganda sites are in Europe spreading a message of victimization whenever they are the mischief makers; their way to exclusive power seems to have been copied from the Nazis and the Communists: use the openness of democracy and, once you are in, subvert it.
Their year in power in Egypt (June 2012 - July 2013), which was ushered in through democratic elections, witnessed the closure of the window to that nascent democracy. Pushed out by 35 million demonstrators in June 2013 who were backed by the army, they cried "foul." Under the guise of lamenting "a coup," they declared utter defiance of the transitional government, began an armed rebellion through "sit-ins," and for full six-weeks openly called for army defections.
They blamed their ouster on the Copts for supporting the forces of law and order, and turned deaf ears and throaty hooliganism on the government appeals for a peaceful end to that clear and present danger of urban warfare.
Arrayed against them were: the new laws regulating public demonstrations; Al-Azhar's declaration that "Islam, in its legislation, civilization, and history does not recognize a religiously-based" State; the long history of Egyptian cosmopolitanism; and the dedication of the judiciary, the armed forces, the police, and the overwhelming majority of public opinion, to maintain Egypt as a secular State.
Determination was winning over the Brotherhood's intimidation. The man of the hour, Field Marshal El-Sisi, whose ultimatum to Morsi of July 2, 2013 which culminated in the replacement of Morsi by Judge Mansour, spoke for the nation. He publicly put it this way to the Brotherhood: "Is it your choice either to rule us or kill us?"
In essence, Egypt was not going to be "an Islamic Republic of fear." The Brotherhood's calls for a popular uprising against the Revolution of June 3, 2013 failed miserably, and with them, the dream of return to the Presidential palace.
The Brotherhood's shallow roots in Egyptian soil doomed it to a life outside the newly-emerging political system in Egypt. That unhappy status became a solid reality between July 2013 and December 2013. During those fateful six-months which culminated in declaring it a terrorist organization saw the true face of the Brotherhood. Bombings in Sinai and in Cairo and other provinces; Brotherhood exaltation of Hamas for it shifting the battleground of conflict with Israel from Gaza to northern and southern Sinai; regular fatal attacks on the army and the police; the inception of an Al-Qaeda presence in Sinai; murder of Coptic workers in Libya; downing of a military helicopter in Sinai, and incessant propaganda against the new Egyptian system from Al-Jazeerah TV channel of Qatar, from Turkish controlled news outlets, and from London.
While Egyptian diplomatic relations with Qatar and Turkey were severed, diplomatic demarches in London led in April 2014 to Prime Minister David Cameron ordering an inquiry into the activities of the Brotherhood in London.
The objective was to determine whether the Brotherhood (calling them "Muslims" is an error) was using London as a base for planning extremist attacks in Egypt. A specific aim of the British inquiry was to have the British intelligence service M16 report on any involvement by the Brotherhood in attacks in Egypt like the February 2014 attack on a busload of South Korean tourists in Sinai. The leader of that investigation is Sir John Jenkins, Britain's Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, a country which also branded the Brotherhood a terrorist organization in March 2014.
In Egypt, a provision in the 2014 Constitution closed the backdoor to a possible Brotherhood return to power. Article 74 provided that "it is not permissible to undertake any political activity or to form any political party on a religious basis...or to engage in any activity which may be contrary to the democratic principles, to clandestine, or has a military or a para-military characteristic."
But that Brotherhood International finds in these provisions an anti-thesis of their core beliefs. Events and revelations by Egypt's Minister of Interior, General Muhammad Ibrahim, strongly point to the Brotherhood's link to Qatari intelligence and petro-dollars. Amin El-Sirafi an aide to former President Morsi has been detained on charges of spiriting documents on army deployments and arming the Egyptian armed forces to Qatar.
The Qatar/Brotherhood connection is also evidenced by Qatar's granting, not only asylum, but also Qatari citizenship to Brotherhood members who are considered fugitives from Egyptian justice. Among these are Assem Abdel-Majid and Salah Abdel-Maqsood.
Mindful of the danger posed by that threat of a budding alliance between the Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda, through Muhammad El-Zawahiri, brother of the successor to Bin Laden, the Interim President of Egypt, Judge Adly Mansour, said recently in a televised interview that he "would take any measure necessary to safeguard Egyptian lives." This is a code language for the possibility of returning to emergency laws in Egypt. That declaration by the interim President came on the heels of an escalation of terrorist activity by Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, a Brotherhood ally and Hamas-inspired group of so-called jihadis.
Army operations against terrorism in north eastern Sinai, especially in the areas of Al-Toma and Al-Mahdiya, leading to the death an Ansar field commander, Tawfik Mohamed Freij (Abu Abdullah), were a punitive response to Ansar. Ansar had struck in late March at the army. One of their attacks took place in Al-Zeitoun, and the second in Mustorod, both near Cairo. Six soldiers were killed largely by non-Egyptian terrorists.
For the first time, a military spokesman, Ahmed Ali, openly made a direct link between the Brotherhood and Ansar. That shift is consistent with security expert opinion which makes a strong connection between the Brotherhood and Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis. Nageh Ibrahim, a former leader of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiyah group asserts that "January 25, 2011 gave the kiss of life to Al-Qaeda which created a branch for itself in Egypt."
So call it what you wish: an alliance; a rapprochement, or even a convergence of interest between the Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda. Semantics are no cure for the perception in the Egyptian mind of a Brotherhood which is knee-deep in terrorism, in anti-Egyptian internationalism, and in amity with foreign actors who are in the business of using the term "islamic" to cover their failing attempts to replace a secular Egypt with an Egyptian province of an Islamic trans-continental emirate. NUTS!!
No wonder that secular Egypt, in its hour of self assertion, is reaching out for a strong hand to lead its fight against the Brotherhood International. Egypt of today sees in El-Sisi that strong hand. Delegations from Sinai all the way across the country to the Libyan border are flocking to his door to pledge their votes in the mid-May presidential elections.
This is a natural phenomenon in societies whenever they are in danger of having their identities submerged in an international avalanche of a destructive nature. The prospective ascendary of El-Sisi to the Egyptian presidency shall represent the expression of a popular indigenous will that shall be immune from any distortion from beyond its national boundaries. It is a transformative period for the new Egypt which is determined to leave the Brotherhood International in the dust of their murderous illusion of a pan-Islamic caliphate!!
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