VoR blog - The West and Muslim Brotherhood: strange bedfellows

Just how long can the West – willingly or unwillingly – help the Moslem Brotherhood in some countries of the region (Syria and Egypt), while opposing it in some others (in Gaza and the West Bank in the first place)?

THE ‘BROTHERHOOD’ IN EGYPT, GAZA AND… SYRIA?

There is very little doubt that the Moslem Brotherhood is one of the main driving forces behind the anti-Assad rebellion in Syria. An ill-fated rebellion in the city of Hama in the 1980s - brutally suppressed by Bashar Al-Assad's father - began when government soldiers were kidnapped by the Syrian branch of the Moslem Brotherhood. The Brotherhood was strongly represented in the Syrian National Council, hailed by Western powers since the start of the Syrian uprising and now still has a substantial quota of seats inside the new National Coalition. This is the grouping first recognised by France and now too by Britain. The French daily Le Figaro estimated the presence of the Moslem Brotherhood in the SNC at 70 percent.

Meanwhile, the much-maligned Hamas movement in the Palestinian territories was founded in 1987 by Sheik Ahmed Yassin, according toThe New York Times, as an ‘offshoot of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood’ from. It is more than likely that Hamas, whom the United States and most of the governments of the EU member states view as a ‘terrorist group’ and on whom they put most of the blame for the bloodshed in Gaza, enjoy full support of their ‘brothers in faith’ in Egypt and Syria. Those same brothers, whom Western powers (Britain and France with even more enthusiasm than the US) helped to power in their countries.

It's true that the full scale of the Brotherhood’s influence in the anti-Assad movement is unknown. And, there are some tensions between the Moslem Brotherhood’s fighters in Syria and some even more radical anti-Western Salafist fighters, who recently refused to join the Western-backed National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. But these details don't make the Syrian Moslem Brotherhood a civilized democratic force. Indeed, in my view, they pinpoint the danger that the Syrian ‘brotherhood’ poses to the Syrian religious minorities (Christians and non-Sunni Moslems in the first place), the Western countries, Russia and ultimately much of the rest of the world. The ‘brothers’ could possibly make exclusion for Saudi Arabia and Qatar, their current sponsors, but even that may not be for long. History shows that egalitarian fervor can sometimes turn on the very sponsors of revolution.

LITTLE VITRIOL FOR ISLAMISTS AND A LOT – FOR RUSSIA

The reaction to the events in Syria and Gaza on the part of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and the newly radicalized Turkey is logical and predictable. There is nothing surprising about Turkey calling the activities of Israel ‘terrorist’ (don't forget, Israel was a friend of a different, more secular Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s). There is nothing surprising about the Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, himself a member of the Moslem Brotherhood, showing open support for the fighters of Hamas in Gaza and calling Israel’s operation ‘an aggression’. What is surprising is the reaction to the unfolding events in the Western capitals, in London and Paris in particular. Are British and French diplomats unable to see a solid wall of Islamist states being created in North Africa and the Middle East? Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and now Syria are falling to Islamists, with the Palestinian Territories possibly following suit? After all, The New York Times reports a dramatic increase in Hamas’ popularity in the West Bank, with the authority of the Ramallah-based head of the Palestinian authority, Mahmoud Abbas, wilting.

In fact, the lessening of power of Mr. Abbas and his Fatah movement (formerly the backbone of the pro-Soviet Palestine Liberation Organization) fits a dangerous general trend, so enthusiastically applauded in the US and Europe during the last two years. That trend is the replacement of the authoritarian (and often formerly pro-Soviet) secular regimes by leaner, arguably meaner Islamist regimes. These Islamist regimes come to power with support from Western governments, willingly or unwillingly blinded by ‘free ballots’ in quickly militarized ‘new territories’. The Islamists hope one day to see a ‘new Caliphate’. In many cases (take Libya and now possibly in Syria) Western governments help Islamists come to power by direct military interventions or at least by facilitating a massive supply of arms. Not surprisingly, the Islamists do not show any gratitude to the West once they establish themselves in power. Nor do they show much interest in the western model of democracy. We must ask if the murder of the American ambassador in Libya, and anti-American actions in Egypt as well as the new ‘ice age’ in Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-Turkish relations are just the first manifestations of a growing trend.

Strangely, the mainstream Western press does not save for those Islamists even a tiny bit of the vitriol it expends on Russia and China for their skepticism about the pro-rebel foreign intervention in Syria and the ‘Arab Spring’ in general. There is no remorse or modesty and, in fact, very little memory. They choose to forget that Moscow warned about the ‘bloodbath’ in Iraq, the ‘chaos’ in Libya and the Islamist presence in Syrian opposition long before the Western mainstream media. "Today some want to use militants from Al Qaeda or some other organizations with equally radical views to accomplish their goals in Syria,” President Putin said in a wide-ranging interview with the RT Television as recently as in September. "This policy is very short-sighted and is fraught with dire consequences.”