This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/4752

Muslim Brotherhood Using Web In Promoting Egyptian Street Violence

January 26, 2011

January 26, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is using the Internet very effectively in promoting the increasingly violent street demonstrations against the Mubarak government.

"Once the Muslim Brotherhood announced their participation in the Day of Rage protest scheduled for Tuesday, January 25th, Brotherhood bloggers promoted a banner across Facebook pages entitled "I'm a MB member who will demonstrate on January 25..." [source, http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=27930]

The same anonymously authored article on Ikhwanweb, the Muslim Brotherhood's official website, charged the embattled and aging president with being in league with the "Zionists," "MB blogger, Sheriff Abdel-Hamid Heshmat from "Bloggers against Abu Hasira group", said, "We say no to Mubarak and his corrupt regime that allowed the Zionists to desecrate the sanctity of the Egyptian land, Damanhur. The government allows Jews to flock to Egypt every year to visit the shrine of Abu Hasira and implement US-Zionist schemes." [source, Ikhwanweb]

The Muslim Brotherhood has been violently suppressed throughout much of its history, understandably since the MB's intent is to turn back secularism and install a Shari'a based government.

Seeing the great political opportunities presented by civil unrest, the Ikhwan is engaging in a full court press to weaken Mubarak in anticipation of the September elections, the second in Egypt's history. With near universal access to the Internet, MB activists are using social networking platforms such as Facebook very effectively to spread its message.

As Daniel Pipes has wisely observed, Islamists have much to gain politically by working from within the system to subvert it, giving them a chance to bring about "peacefully," what they could only dream of through violent jihad.

"Should Islamists get smart and avoid mass destruction, sticking instead to the lawful, political, nonviolent route, and should their movement remain vital, it is difficult to see what will stop them." [source, Daniel Pipes, After defeating the fascists and the communists, can the West now defeat the Islamists?, New York Sun, http://www.nysun.com/foreign/how-the-west-could-lose/45705/]

An Ikhwan controlled Egypt would bring about a massive foreign policy crisis for the United States. Aside from losing what passes for an ally in the Middle East, it would complete the encirclement of Israel, adding to this ring the nation within whose borders modern jihadism was reborn in the early 20th century. Such a change would also have the effect of markedly strengthening the hand of Iran's ayatollahs in the region and hasten an all out nuclear arms race in, arguably, the world's most dangerous tinderbox as nations such as Saudi Arabia would rapidly seek to defend themselves.

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http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=mb1252011101%2Ehtm

This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/4752