Calls Israel “Criminal Enemy” – Won’t Recognize it
After the fall of the Mubarak government in Egypt, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) warned about the rise of the Islamist Muslim brotherhood in Egypt and the increasing possibility of it controlling the Egyptian government and abrogating the 1979 Egyptian/Israeli treaty. It has also repeated calls it made last year for Israel to announce that it will reoccupy the Sinai peninsula if Egypt abrogates the treaty it signed with Israel, under which terms it received back the Sinai from Israel.
In recent days, the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Rashad al-Bayoumi said that the Muslim Brotherhood “did not sign the peace accords … We will take the proper legal steps in dealing with the peace deal … To me, it isn’t binding at all. The people will express their opinion on the matter … On no condition will we recognize Israel. It is an enemy entity, an exploiting, criminal occupier … I won’t allow myself to sit down with a criminal … We won’t cooperate with Israel in any situation” (Roi Kais, ‘Muslim Brotherhood: Israel peace deal isn’t binding,’ Yediot Ahronot, January 1, 2012). Last year, too, Bayoumi emphasized the objective of abrogating the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Also last year, the Muslim Brotherhood leader, Muhammad Badi’, spoke enthusiastically of jihad and called for a state based on Islamic law. He also spoke optimistically about the U.S. heading for a collapse.
Also in recent days, Egyptian presidential candidate Hazem Sallah Abu Ismail stated, “If not for the Gulf of Aqaba [leading to the Red Sea, Israel’s sole southern waterway excluding the Suez Canal], the Jews would suffocate and die, because this is the only artery through which they can export goods to backward Africa. Without it, they won’t be able to export to Africa, and what could they possibly export to Europe and America? The Gulf of Aqaba is nothing more than a canal. If the Egyptians were to sit along the coastline – I am talking about civilians, not the army… If civilians were allowed to be present in that area, the Israeli economy would die on the spot, because any ship passing through would be in danger” (‘Egyptian Presidential Candidate Hazem Sallah Abu Ismail: If We Prevented Ships from Passing through the Gulf of Aqaba, “the Jews Would Suffocate and Die,” Middle East Media Research Institute, January 4, 2012).
The Muslim Brotherhood – also known as The Ikhwan – was founded in 1928 by Hassan Al-Banna. Before and during World War Two, it collaborated with Nazi Germany. It was also the precursor of Al Qaeda and other Islamist terror movements. Its leading intellectual figure, Sayyid Qutb, is the source of the argument used by Islamists that governments not ruled by sharia are apostate and, therefore, legitimate targets of jihad. As Jayshree Bajoria of the Council on Foreign Relations has written, “Establishing an Islamic state based on sharia is at the center of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology, both in Egypt and among the group’s many offshoots abroad.” Middle East experts Robert S. Leiken and Steven Brooke have written that the Muslim Brotherhood “followed the path of toleration and eventually came to find democracy compatible with its notion of slow Islamization.” Shadi Hamid, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center, has described it as “the mother of all Islamist movements.”
The Muslim Brotherhood platform, leaked in August 2007, calls for jihad, states that “Islam is the official state religion and Islamic sharia is the main source for legislation.” It also states that the president and legislative branch will be advised by clerics, who must approve decisions and that non-Muslims will be barred from the presidency, which is also held to be unsuitable for women. The Brotherhood’s slogan is ‘Islam Is The Answer.’ Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood both seek a new Caliphate and their disagreement has been over tactics, not goals. Under repression in Egypt, the Brotherhood renounced violence domestically, but not globally and, in particular, not against Israel, against whom it calls for jihad. It has adopted slogans such as “Islam is the solution” and “Jihad is our way.” The Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood, Hamas, is a blood-soaked terrorist organization which calls in its Charter for the destruction of Israel and the worldwide murder of Jews.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “The 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty is a legal, contractual undertaking by both sides. It requires the faithful performance of all treaty obligations. It is both absurd and unthinkable that Egypt can abrogate the peace treaty, yet retain all of what it gained by signing it, while Israel is deprived of all it gained under the treaty.
“Israel therefore must make it clear that, in the event that Egypt cancels the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, Israel major concessions will no longer be legally binding. This means that it would consider retaking the Sinai desert; its four oil wells, originally developed by Israel; re-establish its former air force bases there; and re-build Yamit, the Jewish town from which 5,000 Jews were forcibly removed as a condition of the treaty.
“It makes no difference that 30 years have passed since the signing of the treaty. The treaty was not a limited one of thirty, or a hundred years. Egypt cannot renounce the treaty without automatically forfeiting whatever it gained by it.
“If Israel speaks clearly of the consequences for Egypt that will flow from an Egyptian decision to abrogate the peace treaty, it may play a valuable, stabilizing and restraining influence on Egypt. By showing that significant negative consequences could flow from Egypt abrogating the peace treaty, Israel might reduce the likelihood of Egypt doing so.”
“We also urge that, if Egypt cancels the treaty, the U.S. must also consider canceling all further aid to Cairo and removing its military advisers, who have expertly trained Egypt’s armed forces. The more than $60 billion in aid over three decades has enabled Egypt to build up one of the largest armies in the Middle East, twice the size of Israel’s, with over 1,000 tanks, 300 F-15 fighter jets, over a dozen warships, missiles and chemical weapons.
“If Egypt had abrogated the treaty, shall we say, six months or a year after the treaty was originally signed in 1979, there would be simply no question that Egypt would not able to keep the concessions made by Israel under the treaty as if nothing had happened. It would also be unthinkable that the U.S. would start, or continue, to give $2 billion in U.S. annual aid to a country that had just flagrantly abrogated the very treaty under which it was to receive U.S. aid.”