Obama Administration: No to Israel, Yes to the Muslim Brotherhood?
Israeli media recently reported that US officials are offering numerous excuses as to why they do not wish to meet with Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman during his upcoming visit. The most outrageous claim was that “we [US officials] do not want to be photographed with him.”
While US officials say they do not wish to be photographed with Lieberman, the foreign minister of the only stable country in the Middle East that’s still a reliable US ally, they seem to have no qualms being seen with Muslim Brotherhood leaders.
Below is a photo of Anne Patterson, US ambassador to Egypt, meeting with Mohammad Badie, General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, on January 18. On January 11, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns met with Mohammed Morsi, head of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. On January 12, former president Jimmy Carter also met with Badie.
It should be noted that Patterson and Carter are not the only “important” figures to be meeting with Badie lately. In late December, Badie met with Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh.
And on Saturday night, Hamas’s Khaled Meshal met with Badie and other Brotherhood officials.
While one could focus on the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel articles on the Muslim Brotherhood’s website, in this instance, we’ll focus on Badie himself.
In September 2010, Badie gave a sermon entitled “How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny.” During the sermon Badie said:
Today the Muslims desperately need a mentality of honor and means of power [that will enable them] to confront global Zionism. [This movement] knows nothing but the language of force, so [the Muslims] must meet iron with iron, and winds with [even more powerful] storms. They crucially need to understand that the improvement and change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life.
He continued to say that
Resistance is the only solution against the Zio-American arrogance and tyranny, and all we need is for the Arab and Muslim peoples to stand behind it and support it.
In the same speech, Badie declared that “The U.S. is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise.”
Avigdor Lieberman is certainly a controversial figure, who has made ill-advised statements, however, those statements pale in comparison, in fact they are in different universes, to those of Mohammad Badie.
Lieberman is the foreign minister of Israel, America’s strongest and most reliable ally in the region, thus US officials should be prepared to meet and take photos with him, especially if they are willing to meet with the anti-Israel and anti-American Muslim Brotherhood.
The Obama administration still has time to schedule a meeting before Lieberman arrives, however, should they refuse to meet with him they will be making a move that will surely cause problems with a key Democratic constituency with which they already have problems.
Update: The US Embassy in Cairo is now boasting about meeting with the Salafi al-Nour party.
.@evanchill .@ZLGold .@LeilaFadel Amb. met with Nour today and Embassy officers have met with them previously #egypt
— US Embassy Cairo (@USEmbassyCairo) January 22, 2012
About the Author
Challah Hu Akbar has been providing Fresh Baked Middle East Nonsense since 2010. Challah "retired" from blogging in October 2011, but has remained a twitter enthusiast. Like Challah Hu Akbar on Facebook.Filed Under: Challah Hu Akbar
Time to cue that Cyndi Lauper song?
During the Clinton Administration, the most frequent visitor to the White House was Arafat. Obama will top that my having Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood over more than any other official visitor to the White House, bar none. In fact the only remaining question is will he build the American Embassy to Palestine in Jerusalem or will he build a second one in Gaza?
Obama in Time Magazine specifically said Israel is not an ally (merely a country with which they have close military relations, like Uzbekistan). Expect to see a quiet downgrade of diplomatic relations with Israel in 2013, right after Iran announces their first nuclear test.
I’ll grant you that when you live in the part of the world where you are surrounded by enemies who seek your destruction, it is understandable that you can develop a certain paranoia. Let me try to be reassuring. America is your friend whether led by a Democratic or Republican president. We have a long history of providing economic aid and military cooperation. American administrations have repeatedly condemned terrorist and Islamist organizations hostile to Israel. So some in the Obama administration are not too thrilled with the Israeli foreign minister who actively works to undermine American peace initiatives and who incites racial and religious hostility toward Arabs. I hope you can understand us a little bit better now.
And they have no problem with the Muslim Brotherhood, which says much worse things. Right, gotcha.
“So some in the Obama administration are not too thrilled with the Israeli foreign minister who actively works to undermine American peace initiatives…”
American peace initiatives on expense of the already land-poor Jewish State. Understood.
“…and who incites racial and religious hostility toward Arabs.”
From time to time I entertain the hope that the Left would cease its moral equivalations. Then comes reality and dashes my hopes.
If US is such good friends with Israel, why is Obama literally throwing Israel under the bus with his secret letter to Iran and his cancelling of of joint security manuvers? And why has he insisted that Israel is not an ally? If Israel is not an ally then who is?
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