Ikhwanophobia, an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood front website, has responded to a GMBDW posting on the latest anti-Semtic article by Khaled Amayrah, reposted on Ikhwanophobia from the Egyptian Brotherhood website. In its response, titled “Anti-Semitism!! Seriously??”, Ikhwanophobia employs the usual combination of fallacious reasoning, deception, and outright lies. According to the post:
On July 15, Ikhwanophobia republished the article titled: “Muslims need to tackle Jewish Islamophobia“, by Khaled Amayrah. Ikhwanophobia offers a simple explanation to the fabricated allegations, regarding the MB and its views of its position regarding Jews. The famous report published by Steven Brooke and Robert S. Leiken titled “The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood” described the MB’s attitude towards Jews
The Muslim Brotherhood explicitly denies that their organization is anti-Semitic.
The former Egyptian MB Chairman Mr. Mohamed Mahdi Akef argues that there is no con?ict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jews, however he asserted that there are conflicts between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Zionists who, Akef asserted “are not Jews.”
This is the endorsed attitude of the Muslim Brotherhood, which expresses the MB ideology. In all reality the Muslim Brotherhood enjoys affable relations with the Jewish intellectuals and academics. To ikhwanophobia.comIn fact when the MB contacted prestigious Jewish intellectuals to support it in the struggle against racism and smear casting. We found them extremely co-operative and helpful. Professor Noam Chomsky simply described the site as an interesting project. Professor Norman Finkelstein, was also supportive of the fresh website; ascertaining that he would certainly want to cooperate with the site whenever it was mutually advantageous and convenient. This attitude from professor Finkelstein is a clear indication that the Muslim Brotherhood does not stand against Jews, on the contrary, the MB encourage affiliation and cooperation with the Jews so long as they do not support the racist Israeli-Zionist agenda. Second, One of the most important issues that should be clarified is the stance of Hamas towards Jews and the Jewish faith. The MB believe that Hamas targets the Zionist occupational project, Hamas and as a liberating movement it does not have any prejudices against Jews, their struggle is against the racist Israeli occupation and their massacres committed against Palestinian people throughout 60 years of occupation. In all reality the Muslim Brotherhood has no relations with the Islamic Resistance movement (Hamas), and is the compiling of imaginative and manipulative individuals. In fact in 2008, The Palestinian government led by Hamas, presented the Palestinian citizenship to Daniel Barenboim, world renowned Israeli pianist and conductor. Rather than discussing the Muslim Brotherhood’s attitude against Judaism which is merely hearsay the MB calls for discussing racism by GMBDW and FSM against Muslims? The latest article titled: “Islam Must be stopped in America” speaks for itself where it reeks of racism and hatred.! Ikhwanophobia.com confirms that the MB does not promote any anti-western agendas and calls on all to view both sides of the coin in an effort to bridge the gap and eliminate any racist and hate sites which ultimately anger citizens on all levels.
This response can be broken down into the following strategies:
1. Fallacious reasoning
The Muslim Brotherhood claims it is not anti-Semitic because the Brotherhood denies that it is anti-Semitic. Not much more need about this other than noting the comment by Akef that “Zionists” are not Jews.
2. Deception
The “some of my best friends are Jews” defense employed by Ikhwanophobia is a case of deception by claiming that the Muslim Brotherhood enjoys any form of close relationship with the Jewish community. The two individuals cited in the post, Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein, are perhaps the most virulent critics of Israel from the academic community and therefore it should be no surprise that they are looked upon favorably by the Muslim Brotherhood who also enjoy close ties to a group of Jewish rabbis whose dream is “dismantling the state of Israel” and who have have attended a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran as well as praising Iranian President Ahmadinejad after calling for the destruction of Israel.
3. Lies
The statement that the Muslim Brotherhood has “no relations with the Islamic Resistance movement (Hamas)” is a brazen lie. In dozens of posts, the GMBDW has documented the massive political, financial, and other forms of support provided to Hamas by the Global Muslim Brotherhood and Youssef Qaradawi, the leader of the Global Muslim Brotherhood, is widely regarded as the spiritual patron of Hamas. On the Hamas side, the Hamas charter states that it is ” is one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers in Palestine” and an Israeli TV station has reported that in 2008, Muslim Brotherhood “representatives” traveled to Gaza from Egypt through the open border to meet with Hamas. An earlier media report indicated that shortly after Hamas took over the Gaza strip, Muslim Brotherhood representatives were present to review Hamas military formations. Last June, a Hamas journalist acknowledged the role that the “international Muslim Brotherhood” has played in providing funds for the purchase of weapons.
The Ikhwanophobia, post also accused the GMBDW of “racism against Muslims.” We categorically deny this charge and challenge anybody to cite a single example of racism in the thousands of posts we have done. On the other hand, in previous articles for the Egyptian Brotherhood website, Mr. Amayreh has called Israel a “sick and cannibalistic society that is as bestial as Nazi Germany was during the Holocaust” , accused Israel of the “wanton slaughter of children [which]occurs each day and every day of the year, and called Jews “a cancer on the world.” In the article in question from July 15, Mr. Amayreh accused “Zionist Jews of spreading venomous hatred against Islam and concludes that “a real alliance is being forged between Zionism and European neo-Nazism.” The article opens by accusing “Zionist Jews” of inciting genocidal hatred against Muslims using “the Jewish controlled media and show biz.” As for Hamas, previous posts have reported on a sermon delivered on Hamas TV by a Hamas affiliated cleric in which he says that the conflict between Muslims and “Jews and Crusaders will continue to the Day of Judgement” and a TV interview with the Hamas Deputy Minister of Religious Endowments in which he calls Jews “foreign bacteria” that should be “annihilated.”
As discussed in an earlier post, the Ikhwanophobia site it self is an example of deception as it claims that it was established “by a group of Academic intellectuals” without disclosing that is in fact an arm of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, as revealed by analysis of its domain information.