In 1928, group of Islamist zealots established the Muslim Brotherhood movement in response to the challenges that were presented by new trends that rocked the cultural life in post WWII Egypt. In those days Egypt was under British occupation and Britain pulled on the strings of power as it pleased, in an effort to influence the society in a secular, Western direction.

As a result, new socio-political trends emerged in Egyptian society: there were those that saw the Egyptian character as based on Pharaonic heritage (a symbol of heresy in Islam) as the source of inspiration of modern Egypt; others saw the Arab nation (of Muslims, Christians, Jews and others, all of whom speak Arabic) as the province of affiliation; and there were also those who saw the Greek (Alexander, Ptolemy) and the Roman (Cleopatra) past as the source of European identity of the Egyptian people.

All of these trends were anti-Islamic, and the Brotherhood - headed by the founder of the movement, Hassan Al-Banna - saw the occupation by the Christian, wine-drinking and pork-eating British, as the source of all the cultural problems of the Land of the Nile, so they placed the struggle against the foreign occupation at the top of their priorities.

…[T]he Brotherhood saw the purification of Egyptian society from the influence of Western culture as a secondary task, that in their opinion is rotten corrupt, permissive and not suitable to Islamic society. The struggle over the culture placed the Brotherhood in conflict with the new socio-political theories about the source of collective inspiration of the Egyptian people, which is noted above. In answer to all of these trends the Brotherhood claimed that ‘Islam is the Solution’; it is forbidden for a Muslim society, whose guide is on high, to search among other cultures for solutions and arrangements that are the mere works of man.

The third task that the Brotherhood took upon themselves is to prove that indeed ‘Islam is the solution’, by imposing Islamic Shari’a in all areas of life, private, family, political, economic and diplomatic. This task, which aspires to impose the rules of Islam on the politics and the state, has created the concept of ‘political Islam’ in contrast to other religions, which separate between religion and state…The symbol of the organization expresses this ideology well: the color of green represents Paradise, two swords in the center express the two basic avowals of Islam - there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger - and one word, which appears in the Qur'an just once, written above: ‘Wa-aidu’ - ‘and prepare’.

This word is the beginning of the passage from the Qur'an (chapter 8, verse 59) ‘and prepare’ whatever you can of your strength and your harnessed horses in order to impose fear (ie. terror) in the hearts of Allah's enemy and your enemies’…

When the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt, King Fuad the First ruled, and in 1936 his son Farouk succeeded him, and ruled until the Officers' Revolution in July 1952. During the monarchy, the Brotherhood acted very freely, because the regime was incredibly ineffective. In December 1948 an activist from the movement assassinated the prime minister, Nukrashi, and two months afterward the movement's founder and leader - Hassan al-Banna - was murdered, apparently by agents of the regime.

The regime of the Officers was much more determined and decisive, and in general, conducted a stubborn battle against the Brotherhood because it saw them and their activities as an attempt to undermine its legitimacy and stability. In1966 President Gamal Abd al-Nassar hung the ideologue of the movement, Sayyid Qutb, because in his writings, he claimed that any regime that does not implement Shari'a is like the heresy that preceded Islam, or idol worship, and therefore it is justified to conduct a jihad against it…

Because the Brotherhood was marginalized politically during the years of the Officers' Regime, they found their fertile field of activity within the economically and politically marginalized people, and turned their energies to charitable activities within the society of the tens of millions of Egyptians living in the poor, unplanned neighborhoods at the margins of the cities, without running water, without sewage, without electricity, without telephone lines, without medical services or educational services, without work and without hope.

It was the Brotherhood who supported these miserable people for years, out of a feeling of commitment, responsibility and mutual trust rooted in Islamic values, which does not differentiate between religion, society, politics, economics and culture. The regime allowed them to operate among the weak neighborhoods, since it did not see acts of charity and kindness as a danger to the stability of the regime, and because the burden on the state of caring for the poor population was eased because of the Brotherhood's activities. The people held the Brotherhood in high regard, because for many years, the Brotherhood supported the poor among the people wholeheartedly; and because they are not corrupt and greedy like the ‘fat cats’ who ruled the state and because they relate to the people with respect, unlike the regime, which humiliated them and oppressed them cruelly.…

Those who initiated the street riots that broke out in Egypt on the 25th of January, 2011, which some call the ‘Arab Spring’, were throngs of Egyptian secular youth, some of whom were educated, who were sick of the corrupt and cruel regime, which was slated to be passed down to the son of the ruler. ‘The Muslim Brotherhood’ did not take a meaningful part in the demonstrations, but rather sat on the sidelines watching to see which side would win. After the military forced Mubarak to resign on the 11th of February, the Brotherhood went out to al-Tahrir Square in order to take advantage of the opportunities that it had awaited patiently for many years.

The Qur'an (Chapter 2, Verse 152) states that ‘Allah is with the patient’, and indeed Allah is with them: in the period that preceded the November 2011 elections to parliament, the Brotherhood activated Operation Da'wah’ (Islamic outreach), in order to translate their investment of years of community efforts into political support by the public. Spokesmen of political Islam, headed by Yosef al-Qaradawi, mobilized themselves in support the Brotherhood, and the result was that almost half of the seats of parliament were won by the ‘Party of Freedom and Justice’, the representative of the Brotherhood, and a quarter more of the seats were won by the ‘Party of Light’, the representative of the more conservative Salafi groups. This is how the decisive majority of the Egyptian parliament was suffused with the color green, the color of Islamic Paradise, in a truly democratic way.

It is important to note here that one of the most eloquent spokesmen of the Brotherhood, Sheikh Safwat Hijazi, appeared on the 1st of May this year, and gave a speech that was broadcast live for thousands of people to see, as part of the Brotherhood's preparations for the elections. In his fiery discourse Hijazi announced that the goal of the Brotherhood is the unity of all the Arab states into one giant Islamic Caliphate, under Morsi's flag, whose capital will be ‘not Mecca and not Medina but al-Quds [Jerusalem]’. His words reflect very well the goal of the movement - to erase the heritage of colonialism, principally the borders marked by colonialist interests, which damaged both the Arab world and Islam; the elimination of Israel; and imposition of Islam on Judaism.

It might be that this referred to a far-off hope and not immediate plans, but the cheers of support from the throats of the masses who crowded into the street expressed the collective energy behind the idea, just waiting for the suitable moment to turn it into reality. Besides this, we must take very seriously the hopes of others, because the state of Israel is exactly the realization of hopes (‘If you will it, it is not a legend’), and our enemies learn from us how to realize hopes as well.

With the winning of the presidency of Egypt…, they have conquered another position on their way to the realization of their Islamic program, and the question of how they will continue from here disturbs the sleep of many in Israel and in the world…

Who are you, Muhammad Morsi?

Muhammad Morsi was born in 1951 in the village of al-Adwa…to a hard-working rural family, the first of its six children. He served as a soldier in the chemical warfare unit in the second Army in the years 1975-6. He is married to Naglah Mahmoud, and they have a daughter, four sons, and three grandsons. He excelled in his studies from a young age and earned a Master's degree in engineering from the University of Cairo and a doctorate in California in the United States, where he also taught. (Another proof that western studies do not turn a Muslim to an adherent of Western culture.)

Morsi joined the Muslim Brotherhood movement in 1979, and served as a member of its ‘board of instruction’ and endured persecution and harassment by the Mubarak regime. Like many other leaders of the movement, he was tried and imprisoned a number of times…Between the years 2000 and 2005 he was the head of a group of independent members of parliament who were people of the Brotherhood…

In 2006 he was imprisoned and when he was subsequently freed, he was put under house arrest. In January 2011, immediately after the demonstrations broke out, he was sent again to prison…Before the elections for the presidency he resigned his position in parliament, and after he won 51.7% (compared to 48.3% for Shafiq) he left the Muslim Brotherhood in order to be the ‘president of everyone’. [for the complete article see Link below in On Topic – Ed.]