U.S.media is reporting that a leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has called for Egyptian Jews who have fled the country to return to Egypt. According to an AP report:
The Associated Press | Dec.29,2012 | 8:16 PM | 1 Dr. Essam al-Erian, deputy chief of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, called on Thursday for Egyptian Jews who immigrated to Israel to return home. ‘I call on the Egyptian Jews to return to their homeland,’ he said in an interview with Egyptian network Dream TV. ‘They must refuse to continue living under an oppressive and racist regime that stains them with crimes against humanity.’ In the interview, al-Erian: ‘Why did Gamal Abdel Nasser have to expel them from Egypt? They consequently participated in occupying Arab lands.’ He added that Egypt has no right to prevent the return of any Egyptian, and that the Jews could have their property back. This way, he said, ‘they will make room for the Palestinians, since the Palestinians’ right of return is indisputable and no one can cancel it.’ Naturally, al-Erian’s statements drew criticism from all sides. One lawyer, Mohammed Salem, demanded that the attorney general take legal steps against al-Erian for ‘harming the country’s independence… by spreading statements that may damage national security. He warned against ‘opening the gates of Egypt before the Zionist enemy.’ Dr. Mohamed Younis, former dean of the law faculty at Helwan University, voiced a different concern. He warned that al-Erian’s statements to return property to Jews could force the state to pay huge sums of money as reparations, even though it was not forcefully taken from them – and all this ‘when the country is facing economic collapse.’ The Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership did not comment on al-Erian’s interview, nor did President Muhammad Morsi, who did not address the issue during his speech before the newly convened upper house of parliament on Saturday. On Friday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center said the Muslim Brotherhood produced the worst anti-Semitic and anti-Israel slurs this year. The center topped its annual ‘Top Ten Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Slurs’ list with a quote from Mohammed Badie, a Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader who lamented ‘Jewish control’ and ’spreading of corruption on earth,’ and recommended ‘holy Jihad’ as a remedy.”
A post from October 2012 reported that that Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi had participated in weekend service where an Islamic cleric called upon the Jews to be destroyed. A post from September 2012reported on an information packet released by Secure America Now that revealed that In one of Dr. Morsi’s most egregious statements, he said in 2004 that the “Quran has established that the Jews are the ones in the highest degree of enmity towards Muslims” and that “there is no peace with the descendants of the apes and pigs”. The report begins with an introduction characterizing Dr. Morsi’s statements and other facts covered in further detail later on in the publication:
- “Resistance is the correct and only way to free the land from the filth of the Jews”
- His words are reflective of his contempt for Jews, The United States, and the State of Israel.
- Dr. Morsi joined the Muslim Brotherhood while living in the United States
- Two of his sons were arrested at anti-Israel, anti-United States demonstrations in Egypt
- Dr. Morsi has repeatedly denounced Egypt’s treaty with Israel.
- Dr. Morsi is an unabashed supporter of Hamas
- Dr. Morsi believes the 9/11 terrorists have not been identified.
- Dr. Morsi has repeatedly defended the Sudanese President al-Bashir who has committed genocide against the people in Darfur.
- Dr. Morsi has pledged to work for the release of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, a militant Islamist preacher imprisoned in the United States for planning the 1993 World Trade Center bombing
A subsequent post reported that during the closing plenary session at the 2012 meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, former President Bill Clinton shared the podium with but failed to hold Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi to account for the anti-Semitic and anti-U.S. incitement engaged in over the years by both Dr. Morsi and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.