Writing in a London-based Arabic online newspaper, Georgetown University academic John Esposito joins the chorus of global Muslim Brotherhood leaders and organizations in espousing the theme of Israeli massacres in Gaza:
Reports have been circulating for sometime in the Israeli press that the Israeli military was planning for and looking for a pretext or provocation to strike. Despite the fact that the militants shelling did not kill a single Israeli, Israel acts as if it has been driven to a “fight to the bitter end.” Following a past pattern, most recently in its humiliating defeat in the Israeli-Hezbollah war, the Israeli military engages in an all-out war that ignores moral and international standards of warfare: the bombings and massacre of more than 375 people and injuring of some 700 lacks any sense of proportionality. Mosques and the Islamic University have been targeted and destroyed as have homes and hospitals. The Bush administration lamely and falsely blames HAMAS, holding it alone responsible for the deaths. If Palestinians had slaughtered and injured a similar number of Israelis, the administration would denounce such actions as war crimes and rightly seek to mobilize the international community.
Dr. Esposito has consistently espoused views consistent with Brotherhood doctrine and during the 1990’s was known for his claims that Islamic fundamentalism was, in fact, democratic and posed no threat to the U.S. Dr. Esposito has at least a dozen past or present affiliations with global Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas organizations including having served on the advisory board of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in the U.K. headed by Azzam Tamimi, a leader in the U.K. Muslim Brotherhood and often described as a Hamas spokesman. Dr. Esposito has also served with global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi on the Steering Committee of the Circle of Tradition and Progress and enjoyed a close relationship with the United Association For Studies and Research (USAR), part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and part of the Hamas support infrastructure. In 2005, Saudi prince Alaweed bin Talal, a financial supporter of the global Muslim Brotherhood donated $20 million to the Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown, headed by Dr. Esposito.