Eye on the Middle East Jan/Feb 2012
Did spring really come early for Arabs in the Middle East last year? Many believe so. Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak was forced out after decades of ruthless rule; and Libya’s dictator, Moammar Gadhafi, was ousted and killed. Many say democracy will now sweep into the region.
But the so-called Arab Spring isn’t coming to Egypt’s 8 million Christians. In October 2011, eight months after the “liberation,” 26 Christian Copts were killed when Egyptian security forces fired into a peaceful crowd protesting the bombing of a church. Prior to the shooting, an Islamist mob hurled rocks, bricks, and Molotov cocktails into the crowd. Christians there are in grave danger.
The main group behind the Islamic advance in Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood. Created in Egypt in 1928, the Brotherhood is a global, revolutionary Islamic movement designed to reestablish the Global Islamic Caliphate under Islamic Sharia law. It proudly raises the banner of jihad, and its crest features a Qur’an with crossed swords. Its credo is “Allah is our goal; the Prophet is our guide; the Qur’an is our constitution; Jihad is our way; and death for the glory of Allah is our greatest ambition.”
If given the chance, the Brotherhood would kill all Jews and subjugate all Christians. In October 2010, Dr. Muhammad Badi, its supreme guide, called for jihad against the United States and Israel. Until January 2011, the Brotherhood was kept in check by powerful dictators like Mubarak.
Today it is in at least 80 countries. The U.S. Department of Justice identifies no fewer than 61 Brotherhood figures and entities operating in America, including the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA); North American Islamic Trust (NAIT); and the Council on American- Islamic Relations (CAIR), which is linked to Hamas.
The Obama administration says the Brotherhood is not radical. In February 2011, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called it “a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence.” Really?
U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick (R–NC), who serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, released the following statement after Clapper’s testimony:
Either the Administration doesn’t know who the Muslim Brotherhood is, which shows incompetence, or they are apologizing for them, which is inappropriate for those in charge of protecting the American people. Let’s be clear—the Muslim Brotherhood is NOT secular.
In a raid several years ago on the home of a Brotherhood leader in Virginia, a document outlining the “strategic goal for the North American operation of the Ikhwan [Arabic for “brothers”]” was seized. Here is a key paragraph:
The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all religions.
Christians in Egypt are experiencing firsthand the cost of “liberation” as the Brotherhood tightens its grip. Fanatic Islam not only threatens Israel but Christians around the world. Believers must stand in solidarity with Israel and pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
