An Internet news portal covering the Mideast has reported that a leader of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood has supported the boycott of gods from countries deemed to be unfriendly to Islam. According to the report:
Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood movement, criticized comments made over the weekend by a leading Saudi cleric, ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz Al Sheikh, who said that boycotting goods from countries hostile to Islam would be of no benefit. The debate has surfaced following Israel’s military operation in Gaza, in which more than 1,300 Palestinians, including civilians, were killed. Arabs and Muslims have been calling to boycott goods from countries perceived as supporting the offensive. The United States has especially been singled out for its diplomatic support of the operation, and due to the fact that American-made weapons were used in the attacks. During a demonstration in the Jordanian capital Amman last week, protesters burned Israeli flags with crates of goods containing agricultural imports from Israel and well-known American food chain goods such as Starbucks, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola and Nescafe. Activists said burning products was part of a campaign to make people in the street more aware about giving business to companies that used their profits to “support the Zionist war efforts.” Jordan signed a peace agreement with Israel in 1994. Many Jordanians oppose any normalization of ties with Israel, at least until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved. Sa’id, the general supervisor of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, said economic isolation was one of several means to fight an enemy and that this was entrenched in Islam, according to the London-based Al-Quds Al-‘Arabi. “The enemy should be pushed and fought by all possible means,” Sa’id said. “Some people don’t feel the scope of the inferno that has burned Muslim children, women and elderly people in the Gaza Strip and they don’t realize that this took place and is still taking place with American weapons and European protection,” he said. He said Muslims should boycott Israeli and American goods, as well as items produced in countries “that join the hostilities against the [Muslim] nation.”
The head of the Jordanian Brotherhood recently called for a boycott of French goods following remarks by French President Sarkozy blaming Hamas for the Gaza crisis. An earlier post discussed a call by global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi to boycott “the nation’s enemies”