MEMRI, an Israeli NGO close to the country’s military intelligence, has published a report titled “Egypt: U.S. State Department Hosting Of MB Delegation – A Slap In The Face Of The War On Terrorism.” The report reviews the recent visit by an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood delegation hosted by the US State Department as well as the controversy caused by the visit in Egypt. The report begins:
February 18, 2015 Several members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) recently reported on their social media accounts that a delegation of MB members had visited the U.S. State Department on January 27, 2015 and met with officials from the State Department and White House, as well as with members of Congress and representatives from American research institutes. According to the MB reports, the purpose of the meeting was to recruit support for their opposition to the ‘Abd Al-Fattah Al-Sisi regime in Egypt.'[1]
On its part, the American administration was embarrassed by the publication of the visit, but openly acknowledged it a few days later. State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki said that the MB members were part of a larger delegation that included former Egyptian MPs, among others, and that they are not currently active in the movement. She added that State Department meetings with various political elements were routine. The Egyptian regime, outraged by the visit, accused the U.S. administration of not respecting the Egyptian law that defines the MB as a terrorist organization, and of discounting the will of the Egyptian people. It also claimed that this conduct flies in the face of U.S. policy, which champions the struggle against global terrorism. Criticism of the U.S. was also voiced in the official Egyptian press and in the Saudi press.The fact that the reports on the visit coincided with the January 31 large-scale terrorist attack in Al-‘Arish, in which 31 people were killed and which the Egyptian regime and media attributed to the MB, only increased the rage towards the U.S. Some articles even accused it of being behind the attack itself.
This report will review the reports on the MB members’ visit to the U.S. and the subsequent outrage in Egypt.”
Read the rest here.
The GMBDW first reported at the end of January that the US State Department had hosted the Muslim Brotherhood delegation for a meeting to discuss their efforts to oppose the current government in Egypt. As that post pointed out, another event was held and hosted by the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) at which the Brotherhood delegation also appeared. As our profile on CSID explains, the organization was founded in 1998 in what appears to have been a cooperative effort among the US Muslim Brotherhood, the US State Department and Georgetown University academic Dr. John Esposito who served during the 1990’s as a State Department “foreign affairs analyst” and who has at least a dozen past or present affiliations with global Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas organizations. Subsequent posts discussed the controversy over who exactly was the sponsor of the delegation which turned out to be CSID.
For a profile on CSID, go here.
For our analysis of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council, go here.