Muslim Brotherhood: We’re
Spending $5 Million on PR in U.S.
Patriots--
The Fox is in the henhouse!
A senior Muslim Brotherhood official in Sudan
told an Arab newspaper that the group’s international leadership has
launched a major PR campaign to influence the U.S. media and members
of Congress to oppose the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a
Foreign Terrorist Organization.
The Brotherhood official predicted that the group
would not be designated by the Trump Administration and that the
Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act introduced into Congress
would fail.
He claimed that his organization had made contact
with governmental officials and members of Congress and convinced them
that the Brotherhood is opposed to terrorism, even though the
Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing—Hamas—is designated as a Foreign
Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department.
The author of the article reports that, according
to sources within the Brotherhood, the group has spent $5 million on
the PR campaign, with contracts being signed last month. Individuals
close to Hillary Clinton put Brotherhood officials in touch with PR
firms.
The effort to influence American media included
having articles and essays published to argue against designation of
the Brotherhood.
Indeed, a slew of articles defending the
Brotherhood were published as it was reported that the Trump
Administration was planning to designate the Brotherhood. Most of
these argue that the Brotherhood is opposed to terrorism and violence.
As I wrote in December 2014, this notion is patently false.
The Brotherhood also thanked the leaders of
Turkey and Qatar for defending the organization. Egypt, the United
Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have designated the
Brotherhood as a terrorist group.
The Egyptian government warned that the
Brotherhood has a lobby in the U.S. disguised as civil society
organizations. An Egyptian government website cited a study done by a
think-tank in Cairo that concluded that the Brotherhood is trying to
influence U.S. policy using affiliates in America that “aim to spread
the Muslim Brotherhood’s extremist ideologies in the U.S.,” in the
words of the website.
A senior UAE official likewise said that the
Brotherhood’s American lobby was responsible for political blowback
over his country’s previous designation of the Brotherhood and two of
its U.S.-based entities, the Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS).
The allotment of money for this campaign is an
indirect acknowledgement by the Brotherhood that it exists in the
U.S., and its activity in the country is important enough to fight
for. The claim that the Brotherhood has an American wing will earn you
a branding as a bigoted “Islamophobe,” but it isn’t so controversial
in the Arab press (even though the Brotherhood insinuates the same
thing there).
Foreign influence operations are at the top of
the news right now in the U.S., but they center about Russia. Why is
it acceptable to say that Russia would try to influence our policy,
but it is bigoted to suggest that the Brotherhood—the largest Islamist
movement in the world—would do the same?
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