U.S. Jewish media is reporting that U.S. Senator John Kerry, head of the foreign relations committee, was scheduled to meet Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohamed Morsi at the Cairo headquarters of the Brotherhood’s political party. According to a JewishPress.com report:
Senator John Kerry, head of the Senate foreign relations committee, arrived in Cairo Tuesday evening, as part of his tour of the region, to hold talks with Egyptian officials about the “democratic transformation” of Egypt, according to the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA. Kerry and his Egyptian hosts will be discussing the presidential elections due late in May, and the conflicts in the region, including Syria, the Sudan and Israel. According to Al Ahram, Senator Kerry and US Ambassador to Cairo Ann Patterson will meet with Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate and head of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) Mohamed Mursi, at the FJP headquarters on Wednesday. The FJP, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, came into being following the January 25 Egyptian revolution. Until then, the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest and most powerful Islamist organization, was not only prevented from forming a party, but was legally barred from political life altogether. The group paid a heavy price in incarcerations and persecution under the rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak. Khaled Kazzaz, an FJP member of Egypt’s foreign relations committee, told Al Ahram, “The visit comes in the context of the US government’s concern over Egypt’s democratic transition, witnessing the evolution of the political scene in the transitional phase, becoming familiar with the FJP’s presidential candidate and reviewing the renaissance project.” Kerry’s last visit to Cairo was in early December. In their meeting then with the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, Brotherhood officials vowed to respect civil rights and international treaties, attempting to allay fears that the Islamist organization would revoke Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.
A post from April 12 discussed a 2011 lecture given by Khairat Al-Shater, the former Brotherhood Presidential candidate, which reveals the true aim of the Nahda (Renaissance) project to be the full “Islamization” of Egypt as part of a step towards the eventual realization of the Islamic Caliphate.
In 2007, Dr. Morsi made remarks covered on the official Brotherhood website which were timed for the sixth anniversary of the 911 attacks and which illustrate several of the anti-American and anti-Semitic themes common throughout the global Muslim Brotherhood According to the report, Dr. Mori first condemned the attacks but then launched immediately into a criticism of the U.S response, even seeming to raise a question about the identity of the attackers:
Immediately after 9/11 attacks happened six years ago, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) group condemned them, seeing them as totally divorced from any religion or creed, actions which are totally rejected by Islam. However, the oppressive aftermaths and repercussions committed throughout the past six years by the US administration deserve another condemnation.From the very beginning, the Muslim Brotherhood group has frankly denounced these attacks. We do not approve carrying out attacks against safe peoples or demolishing houses. “These attacks were a wrong act which we denounce regardless of its doer”…
Dr. Morsi then goes on to explain what he later calls the ” current terrorism against mankind” carried out by the U.S. even comparing the U.S. attack on Iraq with Pearl Harbor:
Mohamed Morsi sees that the US administration is currently the world”s terrorism leader that intimidates civilians with through invasions, and using unconventional weapons…Mohamed Morsi sees that the US administration is currently fighting all Islamic peoples and countries due to the US administration claims that the doers of the 11 September attacks Muslims, without proving such a thing until now. It seizes such incidents as a pretext to achieve its targets, and control wealths of Islamic states, he adds.The US administration”s post-9/11 attitude of invading Islamic states, is fully similar attacking Japan after Pearl Harbr in the Second World War, he sys.
Finally, Dr. Mori criticizes the U.S. designation of Palestinian “resisters” as terrorists and adds a new dimension to Brotherhood propaganda by accusing Israeli forces of “raping women”:
Morsi stresses that the United States hasn”t given a clear definition for the concept of terrorism. The US administration even accused resisters and those defending their land in Palestine of being terrorists, an attitude which the Muslim Brotherhood rejects. Reiterating that the MB fully rejects the 9/11 attacks, Mohamed Morsi said on the other hand that the MB rejects also the exercises committed by the US administration against people all over the world and that this very administration gets in line with Israeli occupation forces in aggression, injustice, encroaching lands and raping women. Morsi pointed out also that there are several polls in Europe revealing that Israel and its supporters are more dangerous to global security than any other kind of terrorism.
The GMBDW has been reporting since 2009 on the relationship of Senator Kerry to the Global Muslim Brotherhood:
- In February 2009, a post reported that a Senate hearing was scheduled that featured two leaders of the Leadership Group of the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project, an organization whose report promotes the agenda of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. The hearing, titled “Engaging With Muslim Communities Around The World” was to be hosted by Senator Kerry.
- In February 2010, a post reported that Senator Kerry attended a meeting of the U.S. Islamic-World Forum that was also attended by many individuals tied to the Global Muslim Brotherhood including Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Kemal Helbawi.
- In February 2010, a post reported that Senator Kerry was invited to give a keynote address at the annual conference of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID), a U.S. organization strongly associated with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. (It does not appear that Senator Kerry actually attended the conference.)
- In April 2011, a post reported that Senator Kerry attended another meeting of the U.S. Islamic-World Forum also attended by a large number of individuals tied to the U.S. and Global Muslim Brotherhood.
- In June 2011, a post reported that the secretary-general of the Tunisian Muslim Brotherhood met with aides of Senator Kerry along with other Senators and U.S. officials.
- In December 2011, a post reported that Senator Kerry and U.S. Ambassador to Egypt visited the headquarters of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood where they met with numerous Brotherhood officials.
It may also be worth noting that in 2004, then Presidential candidate John Kerry was supported by the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT). The AMT supplanted an earlier electoral coalition known as the American Muslim Political Coordination Council (AMPCC). According to its website, the AMT is made up of all the major U.S. Muslim Brotherhood organizations. In 2004, national news describedthe founding of the AMT as follows:
The leading Muslim organizations have been so outraged over the USA Patriot Act (search) that they have banded together as the American Muslim Taskforce (search) to make civil rights their top issue in the presidential race.
AMT activities appear to be similar to those of the AMPCC although consistent with the groups ostensible civil-rights agenda, the organization has defended high-profile terror suspects such as Sami Al-Arian.