Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: The Attack on Israeli Embassy – A Legitimate Act of Protest

While many in Egypt have condemned the September 9, 2011 attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo,[1] various voices in the Muslim Brotherhood have justified it. They called it an understandable reaction to the Egyptian authorities' "feeble" and "helpless" response to the August 18, 2011 incident on the Egypt-Israel border, in which several Egyptian soldiers were killed.

It should be noted that in the weeks since the incident, the Muslim Brotherhood has taken an active role in stirring up widespread popular protest against Israel. The movement called to reassess the relationship with Israel and the peace agreement with it, and some of its leaders expressed disappointment with Egypt's official response to the August incident, calling for a military reaction commensurate with the Israeli's military action on the border.[2]

On August 19, some 200 Muslim Brotherhood activists held a protest rally in front of the Israeli embassy. Dr. Saleh Sultan, a shari'a lecturer at Cairo University and head of the Jerusalem Committee of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), who is close to the Muslim Brotherhood, said at this rally that any Egyptian who meets a Zionist in Egypt is entitled to kill him, just as Israel has killed the Camp David Accords.[3] On another occasion Dr. Sultan called to kill the Israeli ambassador.[4]

Muslim Brotherhood Secretary-General Dr. Mahmoud Hussein said it is unreasonable that the Egypt-Israel peace agreement should remain as it is, complete with the ban on Egyptian forces in Sinai, while Israel continues to do as it pleases with this agreement. He called to reassess the agreement (though not to revoke it), and to bring it to referendum after removing all the clauses that undermine Egyptian sovereignty.[5] The Muslim Brotherhood website posted articles calling the peace agreement futile and urging support for the Palestinian resistance and to prepare for an inevitable confrontation with the "Zionist entity."[6]

Muslim Brotherhood: The Attack – A Response to Authorities' Helplessness

A communiqué by the Muslim Brotherhood's Justice and Freedom party stated that the attack on the embassy constituted "legitimate protest against the Zionist entity and its crimes," and added: "What happened in front of the embassy of the Zionist entity is proof of the ongoing popular opposition [in Egypt] to normalization with the occupation state. [The incident] must prompt a reassessment of the relations between Egypt and Israel, and their character. The [Egyptian] people's message must reach [the ears of] the Israeli occupation [state], which has to realize that Egypt has changed, along with the entire region, and that there is no longer any room in the Arab region for arrogance and aggression..."[7]

A communiqué by the Muslim Brotherhood movement stated: "The tardy and acquiescent reaction [of the Egyptian authorities] to the Zionists' killing of our martyred soldiers on the border; the lack of a firm response and the reluctance to recall the [Egyptian] ambassador [from Israel]; the arrogance of the Zionists, who refuse to even apologize; and the erection of a heavy cement barrier to protect the embassy – these are the main factors that triggered the outburst of national sentiment in the Egyptians [who stormed the embassy]. In handling this [affair], the authorities – both the interim administration and the [permanent] civilian administration to be formed – must comply with the people's will and honor it..."[8]

Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Dr. Mahmoud Ghazlan said, "The invasion of the embassy was a reaction to the helplessness of the Egyptian decision makers, [who failed] to dispel the protesters' impression that the position of the current regime is similar to that of the Mubarak regime when it comes to Egyptian blood – [blood] which Israel has become accustomed to spilling with impunity, for there is nothing to deter it [from doing so]." He added that had the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces (SCAF) decided to recall the ambassador from Tel Aviv or to demand an Israeli apology, the affair would have ended there, but "Egypt's helplessness – diametrically opposed to the Turkish firmness – drove the young people to take upon themselves to avenge the martyrs of Sinai."[9]

Article on Muslim Brotherhood Website: If It Weren't for the American Intervention, Egypt Could Have Taught Israel a Lesson in Morality

Egyptian intellectual Dr. Hilmi Muhammad Al-Qa'oud wrote on the Muslim Brotherhood website: "Thankfully, the Egyptian people tore down the cement separation barrier [that kept] the public away from the building that houses the embassy of the murderous Nazi Jewish invaders, and the Zionist flag was once again taken down and burned... [That] new barrier [erected] in the heart of Cairo reveals many things.

"The speed with which the barrier went up reflects contempt for the [spilled] Egyptian blood, and [shows] how cheap it is [considered], compared with the blood of the Jewish invaders in occupied Palestine. The Jewish Nazi military apparatus has waged several wars on the Gaza Strip, killing over 1,500 Palestinians, wounding over 5,000 men, women and children, and destroying hundreds of homes, schools, mosques and [other] institutions – all for the sake of one single Jewish Nazi soldier called Gilad Shalit, captured by the Palestinian jihad fighters in one of their operations against the Jewish Nazi occupier.

"The handling [of the incident] on the border in which five soldiers were killed... which was premeditated and preplanned [by Israel], shows that the policy of the previous era, [namely] the policy of swallowing the humiliations dished out by the Jewish Nazis, still continues and is impossible to change [even] after the January revolution. [This is evident from the fact that,] in the evening [following the incident], the government announced it would recall the Egyptian ambassador [from Tel Aviv], and the next morning it denied this. [So] instead of being expelled, the Nazi Jewish ambassador spoke boldly and insolently, saying that he would not leave Cairo but stay there, in defiance of the Egyptians...

"When the Jewish Nazi [defense] minister Ehud Barak expressed sorrow about his country's 'killing' – rather than 'murder' – of the Egyptian soldiers, some of the regime's mouthpieces spread [the false claim] that the Jewish Nazi invaders had [actually] apologized for their crime against Egypt and its sons. This [claim] is surprising considering that this minister [Barak] had declared, with his customary insolence, that his occupying entity [i.e., Israel] would not apologize to anyone.

"The Egyptians' [decision to] stand up and set out towards the enemy's embassy, in order to protest the abandonment of the Egyptian border and the murder of Egyptian soldiers, was a natural response that embarrassed the enemy. This situation could have been used to force the Jewish murderers to apologize. [It could have been used] to teach them [a lesson] in morality in front of the world, and to amend the submissive agreement signed at Camp David in a way that would protect our soldiers and our border, stop the Nazi Jewish rampaging in Rafah and its environs, and give the Egyptian people a voice and a presence in confronting these murderers and their constant cheap bargaining. Unfortunately, following the American intervention, the Egyptian authorities discarded this trump card, [exchanging it] for promises that will never be kept...

"When the invading Jewish Nazis announced they would not apologize to the Egyptian people or to anyone else, the Turks launched crucial diplomatic measures aimed at humiliating the murderous Jewish invaders [and pushing their noses] in the dirt. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced the expelling of the Jewish Nazi ambassador from Ankara and the freezing of [all] military agreements with the Jewish Nazi invaders. Turkish President 'Abdallah Ghul announced that the relations between Turkey and the Jewish Nazi invaders would not return to what they were until the invaders apologized for killing the nine Turks [on the Mavi Marmara], compensated their families and the families of the wounded, and lifted the criminal siege on the Gaza Strip.

"The Egyptian regime did not adopt this progressive Turkish position, preferring instead to continue the policy of the regime that has passed from the world [i.e., the Mubarak regime], which the invading Jews had regarded as a strategic asset. Moreover, some voices repeated the same old mantra: Do you want us to enter into a war unprepared?... [But] a political confrontation does not mean war. Egypt holds important trump cards that will force the murderous Jewish invaders to cave in and give Egypt what it wants [even] without war.

"The Jewish Nazi invaders know full well that it is they who benefit from the economic, trade, agricultural, and political ties with Egypt, and that should Egypt freeze these ties, partially or fully, it is they who stand to lose the most. But our top leaders ignored all this and remained as silent as corpses, and the martyrs' blood was spilled in vain... Whatever the situation, the Egyptian people always has the ability to fix it so as to protect its honor and its existence, as it did on September 9, 2011..."[10]

Articles in Hamas Newspaper: The Embassy Breach Heralds Israel's Impending Demise

As of this writing, Hamas has refrained from releasing an official response to the attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo. However, two columnists for the daily Falastin, which is affiliated with the movement, claimed that the incident was a sign that Israel would soon be swept away by the "Arab tsunami," and that it also exemplified how this will occur: masses of Palestinian refugees from the surrounding countries will storm Israel's borders, forcing the Jewish Israelis to flee back to their countries of origin.

Columnist 'Issam Shawir wrote: "For the embassy of the Zionist enemy to exist among millions of Egyptians is unnatural. What is natural is for the people to revolt and for the Zionist ambassador and diplomatic staff to flee, [and for the Egyptians] to use [the embassy's] secret documents [as wrappers] to sell falafel and corn on the cob. This incident was delayed by the regimes that ruled Egypt from before the era of the tyrant 'Abd Al-Nasser and up until the Mubarak [era]. What happened to the Israeli embassy in Cairo is a small-scale example of what will happen to the occupation state [that has been] planted in an Arab and Islamic ocean, whose waves have begun to rise and whose rumble has began to grow louder. Unable to withstand [this tsunami], the occupation state will fall just like the wall around the Israeli embassy.

"This is why the Arab revolution does not benefit the peace between the occupation state and the Arabs, as the president of the [Zionist] entity, Shimon Peres, and others have repeatedly claimed; rather, it benefits peace among the Arab peoples, which will not be realized until the occupation state is gone... There can be no coexistence and no peace with those who occupy Palestine, defile Al-Aqsa, burn our mosques, murder our people, and insult our prophet night and day.

"The occupation state has only two bad [options to choose from]: to get out or to perish. This is the inevitable end of the usurping entity. That being said, the occupation state can live out its last years – until the Arab tsunami strikes it – in security and peace, if it gives in to the conditions of its surroundings. There is, after all, a general consensus about accepting a long term hudna [truce] – providing that Israel withdraws from the territories it occupied in 1967, removes all the settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and ceases its crimes against the Palestinian people without waiting for a Palestinian recognition of its occupation of the territories [taken in] 1948. After all, no one is authorized to relinquish even an inch of Palestinian soil, since Palestine is Islamic waqf [religious endowment] land that does not belong solely to the Palestinians or to the peace propagandists.

"The temporary hudna plan is the common denominator [agreed upon by] the PLO, the Arab peace initiative, and the Islamic Resistance/Hamas. The occupation state must accept reality, especially considering its [current] bleak situation, in which it is unable to impose its own terms and dictates."[11]

Columnist Mustafa Al-Sawwaf wrote in the daily Falastin: "The events at the 'Israeli' embassy in Cairo – the rush on it following the destruction of the wall [around it] and the ascent to the building's 20th floor, where the embassy is located – constitute a living example of how 'Israel' will end. The separation barrier [in the West Bank], which is similar to the embassy wall, cannot prevent [the Palestinians] from charging the borders at the proper time, and no force can stand up to the will of the peoples, nor can American or Western defense stop the [people] from storming the separation barrier and the border [fences] in order to remove them and restore Palestine to its people.

"I can envision how the Israelis will act before and during the rush [on the borders], and how hundreds of planes, warships, and giant sea vessels will stream out of Palestine like locusts... transporting the Israelis, day and night, back to their countries of origin from whence they came to plunder Palestine – the American to America, the French to France, and the Pole to Poland. Thus will Palestine be liberated from its usurpers, and whoever remains will be treated in accordance with his situation: if he is peaceful and has no wish to fight, the Palestinians will transport him to whatever land he wishes; but if he is a combatant, the sword will swing, and the heads of the combatants will roll in a battle that, we suspect, will not last very long or to claim many lives.

"[It will be] exactly like it was in Cairo airport on Saturday night, when special planes were brought in to carry the Israelis [back] to the airport in occupied Lod... [The diplomatic staff] fled the fury of the Egyptian masses, despite the protection the Egyptian military could have provided them. They insisted on fleeing, and the Egyptian military provided them protection only [on their way] from their hiding places to Cairo airport, which took serious security measures both before and during the [Israelis'] escape.

"The Jews thought their fences would protect them. [They thought] their high wall would thwart those who came to end the historic and [in]human oppression that Zionism has inflicted upon the Palestinian people and land, with the help of the oppressive world, which will not be able to keep this oppression from ending... True are the words of Allah in Surat Al-Hashr, Verse 2: 'He it is Who caused those who disbelieved of the followers of the Book to go forth from their homes at the first banishment you did not think that they would go forth, while they were certain that their fortresses would defend them against Allah; but Allah came to them whence they did not expect, and cast terror into their hearts; they demolished their houses with their own hands and the hands of the believers; therefore take a lesson, O you who have eyes! [Koran 59:2]'"[12]

Endnotes:

[1] The majority of political forces in Egypt denounced the attack, including presidential candidates and various political parties, as well as Islamic and Salafi organizations, saying that the violent nature of the attack ran counter to the spirit of the revolution and tarnished its image. For example, presidential candidate Dr. Muhammad Salim Al-'Awa said that the attack harmed Egypt. The attack was also condemned in many press articles. Journalist Mahmoud Al-Noubi wrote in the daily Al-Ahram that, though he is opposed to the peace agreement with Israel, Egypt should have upheld the diplomatic immunity of the Israeli embassy. Al-Ahram (Egypt), September 11, 2011.

[2] Al-Yawm Al-Sabi' (Egypt), August 20, 2011; ikhwanonline.com, August 19, 2011.

[3] Al-Shurouq (Egypt), August 19, 2011.

[4] Al-Yawm Al-Sabi' (Egypt), August 27, 2011

[5] Ikhwanonline.com, August 22, 2011.

[6] See for example an article by Egyptian journalist Samir Al-Wasimi posted on ikhwanonline.com on August 21, 2011.

[7] Hurryh.com, September 10, 2011.

[8] Ikhwanonline.com, September 10, 2011.

[9] Moheet.com, September 10, 2011.

[10] Ikhwanonline.com, September 10, 2011.

[11] Falastin (Gaza), September 11, 2011.

[12] Falastin (Gaza), September 11, 2011.






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