U.S. Resumes Official Contacts with Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood

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June 30, 2011

And Britain allows a banned Israeli member to enter.

The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report

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Reuters is reporting that the U.S. will resume formal contacts with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. According to the report:

WASHINGTON | Wed Jun 29, 2011 10:53pm EDT (Reuters) – The United States has decided to resume formal contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday, in a step that reflects the Islamist group’s growing political weight but that is almost certain to upset Israel and its U.S. backers.

“The political landscape in Egypt has changed, and is changing,” said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It is in our interests to engage with all of the parties that are competing for parliament or the presidency.”

The official sought to portray the shift as a subtle evolution rather than a dramatic change in Washington’s stance toward the Brotherhood, a group founded in 1928 that seeks to promote its conservative vision of Islam in society.

Under the previous policy, U.S. diplomats were allowed to deal with Brotherhood members of parliament who had won seats as independents — a diplomatic fiction that allowed them to keep lines of communication open.

Where U.S. diplomats previously dealt only with group members in their role as parliamentarians, a policy the official said had been in place since 2006, they will now deal directly with low-level Brotherhood party officials.

There is no U.S. legal prohibition against dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood itself, which long ago renounced violence as a means to achieve political change in Egypt and which is not regarded by Washington as a foreign terrorist organization.

But other sympathetic groups, such as Hamas, which identifies the Brotherhood as its spiritual guide, have not disavowed violence against the state of Israel.

The result has been a dilemma for the Obama administration. Former officials and analysts said it has little choice but to engage the Brotherhood directly, given its political prominence after the February 11 downfall of former President Hosni Mubarak.”

Read the rest here.

It should be noted that the Muslim Brotherhood today has become a global network and that the Egyptian mother branch is not necessarily the most important part of the movement. Sheikh Youssef Qaradawi, close to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, is often referred to by the GMBDR as the most important leader of the global Muslim Brotherhood, an acknowledgement of his role as the de facto spiritual leader of the movement. In 2004, Qaradawi turned down the offer to lead the Egyptian Brotherhood after the death of the Supreme Guide.

BREAKING NEWS: Israeli Muslim Brotherhood Leader Arrested In London

Raed Salah.

U.K. media is reporting on the arrest of Israeli Muslim Brotherhood leader Raed Salah after he was allowed into the country and spoke to British Muslims despite being officially excluded from entering the U.K. According to one report:

Detectives in London arrested the banned Islamic extremist who embarrassed the Government when he was allowed to enter the country unchallenged.

Scotland Yard officers and Border Agency officials acting under the direct orders of Home Secretary Theresa May seized Raed Salah late last night after he returned to the capital from making a speech in Birmingham.

Today the cleric, who walked through immigration controls at Heathrow on Saturday days after being excluded from the UK, was being questioned at a police station.

It is understood Mr Salah’s lawyers were exploring legal avenues to fight the travel ban sanctioned by Mrs May after he was accused of “virulent anti-Semitism”.

Despite his official exclusion, the preacher was allowed in and gave two speeches to British Muslims – including one on the Arab Spring at Conway Hall in Holborn.

In another embarrassing blunder, the Standard has learned that police looking for Mr Salah at the event on Monday night failed to arrest him despite the cleric giving a speech from the platform.

Mrs May is angry with UK Border Agency staff as they failed to serve Mr Salah with exclusion papers before he left for Britain.

Guards are also supposed to check all passengers against security watchlists but they failed to spot him or turn him away. Boris Johnson today criticized the UK Border Agency and told the Standard it was “extraordinary” that Mr Salah had been allowed into the country.

The radical cleric came to Britain to give a speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the invitation of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a group of Left-wing Labour MPs and union leaders including Jeremy Corbyn, John Austin and Bob Crow.

Mr Corbyn told the Standard: “I can’t see how the police missed him at Conway Hall, he was speaking from the platform. It all sounds rather Inspector Clouseau.”

The MP for Islington North also rejected criticism of his decision to invite Mr Salah to Britain, adding: “He is recognised as an important figure in Israel and if there is to be any kind of peace process he will have to be part of the dialogue.

“We checked him out and he denied completely that he was an anti-Semite so we thought it was appropriate to bring him over.”

In 2008 Mr Salah was charged with incitement to violence and racism by a Jerusalem court over a speech in which he invoked what is known as the “blood libel” – a notorious anti-Semitic slur.

He was said to have accused Jewish people of using children’s blood to bake bread. Afterwards, the 1,000-strong crowd rioted. Mr Salah was released from prison in 2005 after serving two years for raising millions for Palestinian terror group Hamas.

In a statement today, Ms May said: “We do not normally comment on individual cases but in this case I think it is important to do so. ”I can confirm he was excluded and that he managed to enter the UK. He has now been detained and the UK Border Agency is now making arrangements to remove him. A full investigation is taking place into how he was able to enter.”

In 2010, the Jerusalem Post profiled Mr. Salah who leads the Northern branch of the Islamic Movement, essentially the Israeli Muslim Brotherhood.

In May 2003, Salah was arrested along with other Northern Islamic Movement officials on suspicion of transferring funds to Hamas under the pretense of humanitarian aid. He was released after two years under the terms of a plea bargain. In August 2007, Salah was indicted for “inciting racism and violence” for calling for a “third Intifada,” or uprising, to defend the mosque and in 2008 Israeli security forces raided the offices of the Islamic Movement in northern Israel accusing it of aiding Hamas. In 2009, Salah said that Israel had a ‘diabolical plan” to cause the Al–Aqsa Mosque to collapse “in a way that would appear as is happening as a result of natural causes, such an earthquake.” In January 2010, Salah was convicted of assaulting an Israeli policeman and participating in a violent demonstration.

Reproduced with Permission of the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report.

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Comments (1)

Your title is wrong. Obama resumes contacts NOT the US.

posted by: ed
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 12:12 AM

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U.S. Resumes Official Contacts with Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood