The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch has detailed the historic meeting recently held in the White House between Abdallah Bin Bayyah, a close associate of Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi, and Obama Administration aides and national security officials. We have further analyzed the meeting in the context of what now has clearly become the “Obama Doctrine”, a policy of fully engaging the Global Muslim Brotherhood, including both its US and foreign components. When Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the President and National Security Council Senior Director, welcomed Sheikh Bin Bayyah to the US White House, she reportedly told him:
We asked for this meeting to learn from you and we need to be looking for new mechanisms to communicate with you and the Association of Muslim Scholars.’ She thanked the Shaykh for his efforts to bring more understanding amongst humanity.”
The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch has been introducing you to some of the members of the Association of Muslim Scholars (aka International Union of Muslim Scholars) so that you might fully understand with whom exactly the White House is seeking communication. The International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) is headed by Qaradawi whose virulent anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism, as well as his support for suicide bombings in Israel, has been long covered by the GMBDW and need not be covered further here. In Part 1 of this series, we covered the fantastical anti-Semitic world view of Sheikh Bin Bayyah while in Part 2, we introduced you to Dr. Salah Sultan), Sheikh Bin Bayyah’s colleague at the IUMS and who himself lives in a world of hallucinatory conspiracies involving Jews, Israel, and the US. Today, we want you to meet Egyptian cleric Safwat Hegazy, another IUMS colleague who joins Sheikh Bin Bayyah and Dr. Sultan in their anti-Semitic ravings by declaring that ” Yes, Judgment Day will not come until we fight the Jews.”
Safwat Hegazy (aka Hegazi, Hejazi) is usually described as a cleric and his CV says he grew up in a devout Muslim family with connections to Al-Azhar. His involvement with the “Islamic Awakening” began during the time of the 1978 Iranian Revolution when he was 15 years old and attending high school. Following graduation, he moved to Alexandria where he in 1984, he received a degree in Urban Planning following which he relocated again to Cairo. At some point, he says he received a Doctor’s degree in comparative religion from the University of Dijon, France and from 1990-1998 worked as a Professor of Hadith in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Hegazy has held numerous positions in Egypt including as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Egyptian revolution which coordinated with The International Committee to End the Siege on Gaza, an organization known to have played an important role in the June 2010 Gaza Flotilla. He is also a member of the Islamic Legitimate Body for Rights and Reform (ILBRR), a religious group established after the 2011 revolution to help coordinate efforts among Egypt’s rising religious political forces and accused by Salafis of falling under the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence. Dr. Hegazy’s CV also says he is the Imam at the Dawa al-Haq mosque in Cairo, General secretary of the Dar al-Ansar Islamic Association, and is employed by the Egyptian Ministry of Awqaf.
Hijazi was investigated in Egypt in 2006 for issuing a fatwa calling for the death of visiting Israeli officials and has had legal action brought against him for insulting women who do not wear the “niqab” (full face cover for women), describing them as “whores.” In 2009, he was banned from the UK and described as a television preacher considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by glorifying terrorist violence.” In 2012, he was one of four preachers banned from attending a French Muslim Brotherhood conference on the grounds they “call for hate and violence … and, in the current context, present a strong risk of upsetting public order”. In May 2012, Dr. Hegazy was featured at a launch ceremony for the presidential campaign of Mohamed Morsi where he declared “The capital of the Caliphate – the capital of the United States of the Arabs – will be Jerusalem, Allah willing.” In August 2012, Dr. Hegazy announced on Egyptian TV “One of the tenets of the Muslim Brotherhood, which they cannot renounce, is the Islamic Caliphate and the ruling of the world. Yes. The day will come when we will be the masters of the world.” In December 2012, he he threatened in a speech to “splash Christians with blood” if they tried to join in attempts to bring Mr Morsi down. On July 7, 2013 Dr. Hegazy was one of four individuals described by Egyptian prosecutors as senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and ordered detained on charges of inciting violence which resulted in the killing of anti-Morsi protesters outside the group’s headquarters in Cairo.
As we noted yesterday, Syrian-born scholar Bassam Tibi has described what he calls the “pillars of Islamized antisemitism” which he says can be summed up by the following series of allegations:
- that a Jewish conspiracy against Islam has existed since 622
- that Jews want to rule the world and thus deprive Islam of its own claim to rule the world
- that Jews employ a variety of “secret” forces (such as Freemasonry) to further their goal of world domination, the chief of these being Zionism
- that since the Crusades, Jews have used Christians as their proxies
- that America is today ruled by Jews.
Safwat Hegazy’s employment at the Egyptian Ministry of Awqaf is as unsurprising as Salah Sultan’s position at the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (SCIF) which is affiliated to the Ministry. As noted in Part 2 of this series, an article once posted on the SCIF website illustrates the themes of Islamized antisemitism as outlined by Tibi:
On what foundation can a lasting reconciliation between Muslims, Jews and Christians be based? We must realize that under the existing circumstances, no friendship is possible. Jewry and Christendom have joined hands to destroy us and all we cherish. Zionism, freemasonry, Christian missionary activity and Orientalism have combined to annihilate us religiously, culturally and even physically. It would be sheer folly to kiss the hands that are beating us!.
Peaceful relations and mutual respect among us can only be achieved through strength. We must cease indulging in apologetics and present the Islamic message to the world honestly and forthrightly. Before we can hope to succeed with Tabligh on a large scale, we must first convert the nominal Muslims into true believers. We must establish a full-blooded Islamic state where the world will witness our precepts translated into action. Finally, we must crush the conspiracies of Zionism, free-masonry, Orientalism and foreign missions both with the pen and with the sword. We cannot afford peace and reconciliation with the Ahl al Kitab until we can humble them and gain the upper hand .
In December 2008, Dr. Hegazy gave an interview on Hamas TV in which he referred to the cosmic struggle in which he believes that Islam is engaged with against the Jews and characterizes the Jews as “smooth as a viper, and who lick their lips as a speckled snake”:
You [in Hamas]are the ones upon whom Jesus, son of Mary, will descend, preaching the religion of the Prophet Muhammad in your land. You are paving the way for the war foretold by the Prophet Muhammad: “Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind stones and trees, but the stones and trees will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” You are the ones preparing the ground for this, preparing the ground for the return of the Caliphate in the path of the prophets.[…]Allah is with us, and there is nobody with them. Allah is our God, and there is nobody with them. We say to them: We are not equal. Our dead go to Paradise, while your dead go to the Hellfire. We say to them: The Qassam rockets will serve as Ababil birds.1 Indeed, they are Ababil birds. We say to them that while our martyrs celebrate in Paradise, your dead find themselves in the Hellfire. We say to you: Dispatch those sons of apes and pigs to the Hellfire, on the wings of the Qassam rockets.[…]The [Jews], who are as smooth as a viper, and who lick their lips as a speckled snake, will never live with us in peace and harmony. They deserve to be killed. They deserve to die. They are the ones at whom the Qassam rockets should be fired. You should not care if you hit a man, a woman, or a child. Just like they killed your children – kill their children. Just like they killed your women – kill their women. Just like they destroyed your mosques – destroy their places of worship. Destroy… everything over there.
Also in December 2008, Dr. Hegazy gave an interview on Egyptian TV in which he accused former Israeli President Shimon Peres of filling his helmet with the blood of Egyptian POW’s during the 1967 war and keeping it as a souvenir as “his duty toward God:
The hands of Shimon Peres were soiled with the blood of Egyptian POWs in 1967. Shimon Peres was the commander of the armored corps, which lined up the Egyptian POWs and mowed them down with tanks. Shimon Peres filled his helmet with the blood of Egyptian POWs, and when he was asked what he was going to do with all this blood, he said: “I will dry it and keep it in my home, as a reminder that I have fulfilled my duty toward God.”
[…]
Do you understand what I’m saying honorable Sheik? In 1967, Shimon Peres killed Egyptians with his own hands, and collected their blood in his iron helmet. He filled his helmet with the blood of Egyptian martyrs, in order to dry it up, and keep it as a souvenir in his home, so that whoever saw it would know that Peres had fulfilled his duty toward God.
Following criticism of his December 2008 statements, Dr. Hegazy responded to accusations of anti-Semitism by proudly acknowledging that he is an anti-Semite and once again proclaiming a cosmic battle between Muslims and Jews:
This is a great honor for us. Yes, I am an anti-Semite. Yes, I hate Zionism. Yes, Judgment Day will not come until we fight the Jews. These are the words of our Prophet, like it or not.
[…]
Yes, we are enemies of these people. We are enemies of all those who plunder our land and our rights, and we are enemies of the American government, and of whoever helps our enemies in the killing of our brothers. We are enemies of whoever helps our enemies – America and all the others. Yes, we hate them. Yes, we are hostile to them. By Allah, only our rulers prevent us from getting to you. By Allah, if they let us, we would devour you completely, and we would bite you with our teeth. We would not wait for weapons, for RPGs, or for bullets. If our rulers let us, we would catch you in the street, and we would devour you with our teeth. Yes, we are your enemies, and we will continue to be your enemies, until the day Jesus son of Mary descends, fighting you and calling to join Islam, the religion of the Prophet Muhammad.
One month later, in January 2009, Dr. Hegazy delivered a long tirade on Egyptian TV proclaiming that the Starbucks Logo (actually a fictional nautical creature) was actually “the Queen of the Jews”:
The girl on the Starbucks logo is Queen Esther. Do you know who Queen Esther was and what the crown on her head means? This is the crown of the Persian Kingdom. This queen is the queen of the Jews. She is mentioned in the Torah, in the Book of Esther. The girl you see is Esther, the queen of the Jews in Persia.
[…]
We want Starbucks to be shut down throughout the Arab and Islamic world. We want it to be shut down in Mecca and in Al-Madina. I implore King Abdallah bin Abd Al-‘Aziz, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques: It is inconceivable that in Mecca and Al-Madina, there will be a picture of Queen Esther, the queen of the Jews.
In March 2009, Dr. Hegazy warned on Egyptian TV that the Bahai religion was “supported by Zionism – not by the Jews but by global Zionism. He went on to warn about the “danger” posed by the Bahai’s (a monotheistic religion emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind) and their supposed relationship to Jews:
We shouldn’t say that they might pose a danger. They already pose a danger. From now on, they pose a danger.
[…]
In the Jewish religion, a Jew is someone whose mother is Jewish. If a Jewish man marries a non-Jewish woman, his son will not be Jewish.
[…]
A religious ruling issued by the Jewish rabbis of Israel in 1948 – or actually, this ruling was issued in 1936 – stated that any European claiming to be a Jew, but whose mother was non-Jewish, could become a Bahai and enjoy the full rights of the Jews in the land of Zion.
[…]
Documents that have been made public prove that a Bahai brigade was formed in Acre, and fought alongside the Zionists.
In July 2011, Dr. Hegazy gave an interview on Hamas TV in which he made clear that he saw the conflict not between Israelis, whom he called “foreign riffraff”, and Palestinians but rather between Muslims and Jews whom he helpfully added “tried to kill Christ.”:
Safwat Higazi: Anyone who thinks this is a conflict between the Jews, the Zionists, or the Israelis and the Palestinians does not understand properly what’s going on. I believe that this is a matter of creed. It is a mistake to think that this is a struggle between these Zionists, Jews, Israelis, or foreign riffraff, on the one hand, and the Palestinians, on the other hand. No, this is a real conflict between two religions. It’s the conflict of the Arab-Islamic nation – not merely of the Palestinian nation.
[…]
Interviewer: You seem to have reservations about using the “Jews.”
Safwat Higazi: This is because I do not acknowledge the Jewishness of the people who came from Germany, Albania, Poland, and France, to live in the land of Palestine. I do not recognize them as Jews. They are not the Jews who followed Allah’s prophet Moses. They are not the Jews to whom Allah’s prophet Jesus was sent. They are not even the Jews who distorted the Torah in the 7th century. They are not the people we refer to as Jews.
[…]
Interviewer: So were did these Jews living in Palestine come from?
Safwat Higazi: Those who profess to be Jews are foreign riffraff, as I told you. They originated from the Khazar Jews who lived in Romania or Poland, after having been banished from Spain during the Inquisition. They were Jews by religion, and they were banished, and they lived in these countries as Khazar Jews… They are not related in any way to the Israelites – not in their race, their dynasty, or their religion. . […]
The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily watch wonders why Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah’s “efforts to bring more understanding amongst humanity” have not included the sacking of Dr. Safwat Hegazy.