September 12, 2012 Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, or “Ikhwan” published an Arabic statement (translated the next day in English here) expressing its views unabashedly on the so-called “blasphemous” Muhammad film and Cairo US embassy attack. The statement melds Holocaust negationism with transparent threats of violence.
One and a half billion Muslims are subjected to humiliation and abuse in the person of their leader, Mohammed, the Messenger of God, the Prophet of Islam, of mercy and good tidings for the whole world….The repeated abuse of the Messenger of God indicate the presence of hatred and bigotry in those who stand behind it, with ignorance, connivance and indulgence in those who permit such persistent abuse.
Thus hurting the feelings of one and a half billion Muslims cannot be tolerated, and the people’s anger and fury for their Faith is invariably predictable, often unstoppable. We denounce abuse of all Messengers of God, Prophets and Apostles, and condemn this heinous crime. We further call for criminalization of assaults on the sanctities of all heavenly religions.
Otherwise, such acts will continue to cause devout Muslims across the world to suspect and even loathe the West, especially the USA, for allowing their citizens to violate the sanctity of what they hold dear and holy. Hence, we demand that all those involved in such crimes be urgently brought to trial. Certainly, such attacks against sanctities do not fall under the freedom of opinion or thought. They are crimes and assaults against Muslim sanctities, and must not be tolerated by the countries where they are produced or launched, since they are also detrimental to the interests of those countries in dealings with the peoples of the Muslim world.
The West has passed and imposed laws that punish those who deny or express dissident views on the Holocaust or question the number of Jews killed by Hitler, a topic which is purely historical, not a sacred doctrine.
…[W]e cannot ignore the fact that these countries never made a move regarding the abuse until after the strong reaction seen across the Muslim world. We believe those countries should take appropriate actions and lay out clear and proper procedures to deal with such crimes, especially since preparations for this abuse took place plainly, right under the noses of authorities in those countries – over several months. Prevention is always better than cure.
Predictably the New York Times ignored this forthright pronouncement and published with glee on September 13, 2012 a taqiyya-laden letter by Khairat el-Shater, Deputy President, of the Muslim Brotherhood, expressing “relief” that US embassy staff in Cairo were unharmed.
However, by Thursday morning (9/13/12) Al Ahram reported that even the US embassy staff in Cairo responded with sobriety to the Muslim Brotherhood’s official English-language Twitter account @Ikwanweb, which reposted a message from the group’s deputy head, Khairat El-Shater, (reiterating what he had published in the New York Times, formatted for Twitter) that he was “relieved none of @USembassycairo staff was hurt” and expressing his hope that US-Egypt relations could weather the events.
The embassy noted that this reconciliatory tweet was posted while the Brotherhood’s Arabic-language Twitter account and its official website were both simultaneously lauding the protests and calling for a million man march on Friday (9/14/12) . An Arabic language article on the Brotherhood’s website was entitled “Egyptians rise to defend the Prophet’.” Highlighting the contradiction, the US Embassy in Cairo responded acidly from its own Twitter account:
Thanks. By the way, have you checked out your own Arabic feeds? I hope you know we read those too.
