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Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Sticks with Bin Laden
(Atlantic Monthly) Eric Trager - Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood on Monday used the honorific term "sheikh" to refer to bin Laden, and defended "resistance" against the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan as "legitimate." The Muslim Brotherhood's response to bin Laden's death may finally end the mythology that the organization is moderate or, at the very least, could moderate once in power. The Muslim Brotherhood's promise that its "moderation" means rejecting violence includes a gaping exception: it endorses violence against military occupations, which its leaders have told me include Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, and Palestine. Muslim Brotherhood leaders have endorsed attacks on Israeli civilians as an exception to their no-violence-except-against-occupation exception, viewing all of Israel as an occupation. "Zionism is gangs," said Mehdi Akef, the former Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood. "It's not a country. So we will resist them until they don't have a country."