ANALYSIS: The UK Muslim Brotherhood Report- Does It Matter Who Supports It?

The GMBDW has been involved in reporting on the Muslim Brotherhood since its first post in June 2007 and the GMBDW Editor began his investigations into the same subject on September 12, 2001. Given 14 years+ experience, we believe we understand full well how “politics” play a role in reporting on this subject and the essence of the issue is really rather simple. When either “side” issues a report, paper, article, etc, the other side tries to destroy its credibility by pointing to the funder, backer, sponsor or whoever was in someway seen to be behind the report, paper, article, etc. in question. We see this dynamic playout for the umpteenth time with the just issued UK report on the Muslim Brotherhood as various Brotherhood and pro-Brotherhood entities attempt to discredit that report by claiming it was somehow produced under pressure. For example the Middle East Monitor, clearly a publication representing the Muslim Brotherhood viewpoint, said yesterday that “it appears that Cameron agreed to commission a report on the Muslim Brotherhood to pacify the UAE, which offered Britain some lucrative business deals in return.” Whatever the position of the UAE or other critical voices on this subject, the more important question is whether or not the findings of this or any other similar report are valid and based on reliable evidence. As we noted after the UK report was issued, the GMBDW has been documenting the key finding of the report since the beginning of the publication in 2007 including that:

The Muslim Brotherhood has become a global network.

The Global Muslim Brotherhood “has a highly problematic relationship to violence and is prepared to countenance violence – including, from time to time, terrorism – where gradualism is ineffective.”

Muslim Brotherhood groups in the UK are connected to a wider network of Global Muslim Brotherhood organizations.

UK charities such as INTERPAL, despite wholly inadequate investigations by the UK Charity Commission, are part of the Hamas and Brotherhood infrastructure in the UK.

The Muslim Brotherhood works counter to the successful integration of Muslim immigrants.

If these conclusions were only drawn under pressure from the Gulf, then who was responsible for these same conclusions when the GMBDW started making them in 2007, long before the UAE for example became a factor in criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood.? When the Wall Street Journal published its series of articles on the European Muslim Brotherhood in 2005, much of which also was in line with the above, was some other interested party behind the Journal’s reporting? If who is behind any given finding is the determining factor, than on those grounds, is not the UK report valid de facto because opposing it are the Muslim Brotherhood tied news operations the Middle East Monitor and Middle East Eye as well as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood itself?

The reality is that there are varied and extensive interests arrayed on both sides of the Muslim Brotherhood “question” and if every statement, report, etc is dismissed because of who is making it, there will be precious little left to discuss on the issue. That is why the media territory is fought over so vociferously on the grounds that the media is supposed to be neutral ground although that patina of neutrality is hard to maintain with coverage in newspapers such as the UK’s Guardian whose former chief foreign leader writer runs the Middle East Eye with with ties to Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood. (Academia is also supposed to be neutral, yet perhaps the world’s best known academic on these subjects is John Esposito whose work is largely funded by Saudi Arabia and who himself has myriad links with the Global Muslim Brotherhood.)

In the end, who else is expected to fund work on these subjects except those who have a point of view of one kind of another so rather than the incessant commentary on who or who is not “behind” a given work, a more fruitful approach might be to examine the arguments and evidence itself that are being advanced. That is why the GMBW chose years ago to base its work solely on “open source” material and clear argumentation so that any interested party can see for themselves if what we are claiming is on solid ground and what evidence we have used. We do note that the UK report would have been bolstered by release of the supporting evidence, or at least a portion of it, but we are once again heartened that the UK government has drawn conclusions that supports the basics of our own efforts on the Global Muslim Brotherhood. We reject any notion that those conclusions are in any way dependent on any interested party and we have always believed that if any honest observer or analyst was looking at the same evidence that we do, that they would inevitably come to the same conclusions that we have come to regardless of who else may agree or disagree.